As a Christian school teacher, you want to nurture your students’ faith. So, you want to help your students:

• Understand a Biblical perspective of what they study.
• Apply a Biblical perspective to what they study.

Question: How can you learn to nurture your students’ faith even more?

Answer: By reflecting on questions. By reflecting on questions about targeting Biblical perspective. Here are 65 questions, divided into categories:


Target Biblical perspective:

1. What happens in Christ-centered education?
2. How can you help your students love Jesus and live for Him?
3. What’s your mission?
4. In Christian education, what’s success?
5. What does “application of a Biblical perspective to course content” mean and not mean?
6. What role do connections play in Christian education?
7. What Biblical teaching connects to what students are studying?
8. What 3 Biblical principles will you help your students understand?
9. What Biblical principles do you want your students to understand and apply?
10. What hinders you/your school from helping students increase application of a Biblical perspective?
11. How can you increasingly target Biblical perspective?

Use creation-fall-redemption-restoration to target Biblical perspective:

1. Creation: What’s God’s purpose?
2. Fall: What’s wrong?
3. Redemption: What difference does Jesus make?
4. Restoration: What will you do?

Use questions to target Biblical perspective:

1. Why use questions? (Read, Discuss)
2. Why does God ask questions? (Read, Discuss)
3. How valuable are questions? (Read, Discuss)
4. What does using questions look like? (Read)
5. What questions should your students respond to? (Read, Discuss)
6. What questions should your students ask? (Read, Discuss)
7. What makes a good question good? (Read, Discuss)
8. What question do you want to ask your students? (Read, Discuss)
9. What do you want your students to learn (when you ask a question)? (Read, Discuss)
10. How can you get your students to sincerely respond to questions? (Read, Discuss)
11. How can you use your questions effectively? (Read, Discuss)

Use assessment to target Biblical perspective:

1. How does assessment impact student learning?
2. What type of assessment can you use?
3. What makes a good assessment good?
4. How good is your assessment?
5. How can you make your assessment even better?
6. How proficiently do you want your students to use a Biblical perspective?
7. How much practice do your students need?
8. What makes a good rubric good?
9. How can you use a rubric?
10. How can you use assessment data?
11. What's your vision for using assessment?
12. How committed are you to having your students apply a Biblical perspective to what they learn?

Meet student learning needs to target Biblical perspective:

1. What are sample learning needs? (Read)
2. How can you meet your students’ learning needs? (Watch, Read, Discuss)
3. How can you help your students see the importance of Biblical perspective? (Read)
4. How can you help your students understand that a Biblical perspective can be applied to course content? (Read)
5. How can you show your students what applying a Biblical perspective looks like? (Read)
6. How can you help your students understand how you teach from a Biblical perspective? (Read)
7. What vocabulary words do your students need to learn? (Read, Discuss)
8. What engaging instructional strategies will help your students? (Read, Discuss 1, Discuss 2)
   
9. How can you give your students opportunities to think through answers for themselves? (Read)
10. How can you provide time during class for reflection? (Read, Discuss)
11. How can you design assessments so that your students connect a Biblical perspective with their lives? (Read, Discuss)
12. How can you give your students more practice? (Read)

What 3 things will you do to target Biblical perspective?

1. What 3 behaviors will you model?
2. What 3 questions will you train students to ask?
3. What 3 questions will you ask students?
4. What 3 Bible verses will you help students memorize, understand, and apply?
5. What 3 Biblical principles will you help students understand and apply?
6. What 3 skills will you help students improve?
7. What 3 types of assessment will you use?
8. What 3 engaging instructional strategies will you use?
9. What 3 student learning needs will you meet?
10. What 3 ways will you decorate your room?
11. What 3 things will you put on your course handouts?
12. What 3 classroom guidelines will you use?
13. What 3 ways will you involve parents?
14. What 3 things do you want from your principal or colleagues?
15. What 3 things will you do to stay focused?
    

Remember: The real question isn't "How can you learn to nurture your students’ faith even more?" The real question is, "What will you do to nurture your students’ faith even more?"


Now it’s time for action. To take action, answer 5 questions:

1. How do you currently nurture your students’ faith?
2. What excites/concerns you about nurturing your student’s faith?
3. How does targeting Biblical perspective help you nurture your students’ faith?
4. To nurture your students’ faith even more, which 3-5 questions do you really want to reflect on?
   5 What will you do?

Take action. Nurture your students’ faith by targeting Biblical perspective. Today.

*Additional resources:

• Videos
• Self-assessments: Target Biblical perspective • Use questions • Use assessment • Meet student learning needs
• Tutorials
• Downloadable resources (articles, tools)

You're at school, and you want to help others grow. Instead of giving advice or suggestions, ask questions that fit the DRAW protocol:

• Define: Get the facts defined.
• Respond: Get the facts responded to in terms of feelings/experiences.
• Analyze: Get the facts, feelings, and experiences analyzed.
• What’s next?: Get next steps considered.

 
Here's a set of DRAW questions you can use for a faculty meeting conversation about a Biblical perspective of science-related issues:
 
Define: Get the facts defined.

1. What do the following 5 terms mean: creationism, theory of evolution, common ancestry, microevolution, and evolutionism?
2. What questions do students, parents, staff, and board members ask about these 5 terms?
3. What are your students taught about these 5 terms?
4. What’s the school’s position on these 5 terms?

Respond: Get the facts responded to in terms of feelings/experiences.

1. What excites/frustrates you about these 5 terms?
2. What positive/negative experiences have you had related to these 5 terms?

Analyze: Get the facts, feelings, and experiences analyzed.

1. Scale of 1-10 (10 being high), how important is it for your school to address these 5 terms?
2. What helps/hinders students as they work to learn about these 5 terms?
3. For your students to learn about these 5 terms, what do teachers need to keep doing? start doing? stop doing?

What’s next?: Get next steps considered.

1. What action steps will you take?
2. What resources will you need?
3. Who’s responsible for what?
4. How will you hold each other accountable?

You want your students to connect what they study and what the Bible teaches. You’re clear on what your students are studying. You’re not as clear on what Biblical teaching connects to what your students are studying.
 
Question: How can you determine what Biblical teaching connects to what your students are studying?
 
Answer: By reflecting on 5 questions. As a result of reflecting on 5 questions, you’ll determine Biblical teaching that connects to what your students are studying.
 
Here are the 5 questions:

1. What are your students studying?
2. Which 1 or more items from the list below naturally connect to what your students are studying?: God, people, morality, death, history, creation, fall, redemption, restoration, loving God/neighbor, caring for creation, making disciples, being part of the Church, respect/disrespect of authority, sanctity of life/murder, sexual purity/promiscuity, private property/theft, truth telling/bearing false witness, contentment/covetousness, servanthood/selfishness
3. What does the Bible say about the 1 or more items that connects to what your students are studying?
4. So, what 1 or more Biblical principles connect to what your students are studying?
5. What 3 or more Bible verses support a given Biblical principle?

Question: What does using these questions look like?
 
Answer: Here are Kim Essenburg’s responses. Kim teaches English 10 at Christian Academy in Japan.
 
(1) What are your students studying?
Kim: They’re studying self-realization, human potential, and social obligations as depicted in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.
 
(2) Which items from the list below naturally connect to what your students are studying?
Kim: Well, self-realization, human potential, and social obligations fit in the category of “people.”
 
(3) What does the Bible say about “people” that connects to what your students are studying?
Kim: God made all people. All people have worth. He gave us gifts, and we should use these. We should work to understand what gifts God has given us, and we need to do this while maintaining our obligations to love and serve others.
 
(4) So, what 1 or more Biblical principles connect to what your students are studying?
Kim: Secure in her worth in God’s eyes, the Christian follows Jesus' example of service, humility, and submission.
 
(5) What 3 or more Bible verses support that Biblical principle?
Kim: I Corinthians 10:24 and 12:12-26, Mark 10:42-45, Philippians 2:1-11, and Ephesians 5:21.
 
Target Biblical perspective. Reflect on 5 questions. Help your students learn the Biblical principles that connect to what they study. Today.
 
*To learn more about identifying Biblical principles, click here.

Kim Essenburg, English 10 teacher at Christian Academy in Japan, responds:
 
What energizes me when I'm wondering whether teaching is worth the effort? Finding out that students are learning significant things in my class. So, I arrange to get a big dose of encouragement every time I give a test.
 
The last question on every test is "What is something significant you learned this unit that you have not yet had an opportunity to show on this test?" It's worth 1-3 points, whatever I need to round out the score. I actually look forward with great anticipation to grading tests just to be able to read answers to this question! 
 
And, asking this question is a pedagogically sound practice. By asking this question, I help my students understand that there are important things to learn in class that won't necessarily be on the test. By asking this question, I challenge them to make their own connections, applications, explorations even beyond what we talk about in class.
 
I celebrate this learning with students and with colleagues when I pass back the tests. How? By collecting some of the most insightful, articulate, original answers and sharing them--reading them aloud in class, and distributing them to colleagues by email or hard copy. Here's some of the learning I'm celebrating from my last test on the novel Cry, the Beloved Country:

1. “I learned that there are so many things in the world that can easily break shalom (=love, truth, loyalty, grace, justice, righteousness)… it is very important to make and be willing to make shalom happen, instead of being ignorant about it.”
2. “Learning a new language or speaking a language you’re not that good at shows that you’d rather risk humiliation than avoid communicating and making unity.”
3. “There is no peace when there is fear. Fear can only be conquered by love, the one thing that has absolute power. Therefore, love brings peace.”
4. “Msimangu and James Jarvis both said that they were not saintly, God just used them.”
5. “...we need to help people because we really, actually WANT to help them, not because we pity them, think we should help them…. Because there is love, there is help among the people. Because there is help, there is change, so that the world (community) will be one."
6. “Shalom is an ideal, and our group concluded that since humans have an ideal, there is a God. If there was no God, we wouldn’t know or have an ideal.”
7. “I learned from Msimangu that love is the only thing that has ultimate power. I learned from Kumalo and Father Vincent that being positive and trusting God while there’s suffering is really important.”
8. “I learned that God gives hope to those who have none. Because of the hope, some broken things can become new.”

Kim and Michael Essenburg, missionaries with Christian Reformed World Missions, serve at Christian Academy in Japan. This morning they talked about progress Kim's students are making on applying a Biblical perspective, and then Kim determined her next step.

Michael: What progress are you making on your goal?

Kim: In their Cry, the Beloved Country essays, my students did a better job of applying a Biblical perspective. They were better able to show their grasp of what the Bible teaches, not just what a verse says. They more effectively discussed Biblical perspective, instead of just citing verses.

Michael: That sounds good!

Kim: I was pleased. They did a good job of following the writing guidelines I’ve emphasized.

Michael: So you’re emphasizing effective writing guidelines to help your students apply a Biblical perspective when writing?

Kim: Yes.

Michael: What are your guidelines?

Kim: l’m using 5 guidelines:

1. Give supporting details about Biblical perspective, like quotations of Bible verses.
   
2. Introduce quotations.
   
3. State the topic sentence first, then the support, like quotations.
   
4. Include Biblical perspective in 1 or more topic sentences.
   
5. Integrate Biblical perspective into the thesis statement.

Michael: Which guidelines did the students follow?

Kim: Guidelines 1-3—stating the topic sentence first, introducing quotations, and giving supporting details.

Michael: Interesting. Your guidelines start with support and not with the thesis. What’s your thinking behind this?

Kim: I want to meet students where they are, so I use a developmental approach when giving writing instruction. I emphasize citing Bible verses, move to emphasizing stating the topic sentence first, and finally teach about including Biblical perspective in thesis statements.

Don’t get me wrong. I consistently expect students to include Biblical perspective in their thesis statements, but I teach this last. Ultimately, what I want is for students to defend a thesis statement that includes Biblical perspective by using topic sentences and supporting details that include Biblical perspective.

Michael: So you want something like this?: Thesis← →Topic Sentences← →Supporting Details

Kim: Yes.

Michael: So what’s your next step?

Kim: I want to keep focusing on helping my students apply a Biblical perspective. In their last essays, my students did a pretty good job on supporting details, introducing quotations, stating their topic sentences first. Some students included Biblical perspective in their topic sentences, and I’d like more of them to do this.

Michael: What do you mean “more”?

Kim: Well, my guess is that about of half of the essays included at least one topic sentence that included Biblical perspective. I’d like to get that up to 100%. My students are working on an essay about Night. Right now, I’m reading the rough drafts. When the final drafts come in, I’d like all of the essays to have at least 1 topic sentence that includes Biblical perspective.

Michael: How doable is that?

Kim: I’m pretty confident all my students can include 1 Biblical perspective topic sentence. When I turn back the rough drafts, I’ll need to teach a writing lesson about this. And I can have students check for Biblical perspective topic sentences when doing peer reviews on the revised drafts. That’s doable. That’ll work. That’ll help me close the gap.

Want to increase student understanding and/or application of a Biblical perspective? Use data from 1 Biblical perspective assessment to modify a unit plan (questions, content/skills, assessment, instructional strategies).

Step 1: Use the questions below to reflect on your assessment data:

1. What 3 or more student learning results (quotations, exhibits) are you excited about?
   
2. What percentage of students scored at or above standard on understanding and/or applying a Biblical perspective?
   
3. What Biblical perspective question(s) did you ask?
   
4. What subject-specific content/skills did you teach to help students answer the Biblical perspective question(s)?
   
5. What Biblical perspective content did you teach to help students answer the Biblical perspective question(s)?
   
6. To demonstrate their learning, what type of assessment did students complete? What was the actual assessment prompt?
   
7. What 2-3 key instructional strategies did you use to help students learn the content/skills (and so prepare them for the assessment)?
   
8. What 2-3 SMART action steps will you take to increase student understanding and/or application of a Biblical perspective?

Step 2: Take action. Today.