How to Train Sunday School Teachers

(The following principles are taken from Teaching To Transform Not Inform 1)

Topic: How to Train Sunday School Teachers

Note: These are a few tips for how to train Sunday school teachers. It assumes you also conduct training for the other areas of Sunday school leadership: inreach, outreach, etc..

1. Before the meeting.
1. Locate a room with a large White Board(s) so everything can be listed.
2. Find secretary who can type notes into a computer so they can be printed and handed out at the conclusion.
3. Many with experience in knowing how to train Sunday school teachers require them to complete the “Lesson Preparation Guide” (see the appendix in the Teaching To Transform Not Inform 2 book) before attending the meeting. This ensures they have studied and thought through the lesson.
2. Accountability.
1. Consider making it a requirement to complete the “Lesson Preparation Guide” before arriving.
2. You want teachers to arrive having already studied the text and put together a tenative lesson outline.
3. During the meeting.
1. Make it fun, encouraging, and relational (help teachers build relationships with each other).
2. Spend a percentage of your time specifically training the Sunday school teachers on effective teaching principles and techniques.
3. Quickly review the “Lesson Preparation Guide” to ensure everyone is on the same page.
4. Develop the lesson as a group.
   Those familiar with how to train Sunday School teachers often find it more effective to develop the lesson together during the training time than to use the group time for explaining the text since teachers can easily do this at home ahead of time. It is far more effective to use this time to develop the lesson's Sticky Proverb, Visual Anchor, Application points, the Conclusion Challenge, and more (for a complete discussion of each of these teaching principles, see Teaching To Transform Not Inform 2 book). As multiple teachers brainstorm these elements together, the creative juices flow, and the group as a whole can almost always develop a better lesson than a single teacher alone can.
5. Remind teachers of previously learned teaching principles as they apply to the lesson being developed.

6. When developing the lesson as a group, work through the seven elements of a lesson as dicussed in Teaching To Transform Not Inform 2. As you develop each section of the lesson (e.g., Sticky Proverb, Visual Anchor, etc.), ask teachers what they previously came up with for each teaching element. As each teacher offers their suggestion, thank them for it, and write it on the board. You don't need to correct suggestions at this point. After all suggestions have been listed on the board, have everyone vote on the top two or three. Then, use these two or three to develop a final version that everyone can use. By using this method, you never seldom need to correct a suggestion that misses the mark.

Those who know how to train Sunday school
teachers know that most great teachers
don't begin as great teachers but
develop over time.

For links on how to train Sunday school teachers, see the following:

• Sunday School Teacher Training
• How to Train Sunday School Teachers
• Benefits of training Sunday school teachers
• Teaching a Bible study
• How to train Sunday school teachers
• by Brad Simon
• Find us on Google+

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