Posted February 5, 2015 Book: 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator Author: Jared Dees Ave Maria Press. Notre Dame, IN 2015. Pp. 164 An Excerpt from the Jacket: Jared Dees creator of the popular website The Religion Teacher, shares practical, easy-to-use teaching strategies and exercises for spiritual growth. These components are designed to improve the effectiveness of any busy religious educator, whether volunteer or professional, grade school or high school. Identify Your Students' Top Needs "The Lord guides the humble rightly, and teaches the humble the way." Recognizing and addressing the real needs of our students is a choice we all need to make. Teaching is not about our presentation and us, it is about the students and their participation. The more we focus on what our students need to learn rather than what we want to teach, the more success we will have in the classroom. Think about the way Jesus taught and served the people. He did not wait for them to come to him (thought they certainly did seek him out). He went out to them and visited them in their homes and shared meals with them. He recognized what was truly on their minds and addressed these things directly. In a similar way, we need to uncover the greatest needs of our students and address them directly by meeting them where they are. . . . Exercise: Identify the Best Ways Your Students Learn An understanding of how your students learn best will come to you over time as long as you are careful to observe which learning styles are most successful. A key to developing a full understanding of student learning is to try multiple types of activities and see which ones students connect with the most. You can do the following: Survey your students. One way to understand how your students learn best is to ask them. Give your students a list of several types of learning styles (for example, listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing pictures, drawing pictures, viewing videos, movement, music, interpersonal group work, and intrapersonal reflection) with the following prompt: Which of the following helps you learn and understand new ideas the best? Choose the top three. (See www.therereligionteacher.com/31 days/day8 for a sample survey). Or you might just ask them to rank which ones they like to do the most in class or outside of it. The results will be helpful insight to you as well. Table of Contents: Part I: Become a Better Disciple Day 1: recall your calling as a religious educator 2. Recognize your relationship with Christ 3. Imitate one of the best teachers in your life 4. Spend time reading the scriptures 5. Spend time reading the writing of a saint 6. Learn something from your students 7. Improve one prayer habit Part II: Become a Better Servant 8. Identify yours students' top needs 9. Identify your students' biggest strengths 10. Get to know a student 11. Write a note of praise to a student who struggles 12. Compliment a parent about their child 13. Pray for your students Part III: Become a better leader 14. Eliminate the time-wasters 15. Update your classroom procedures 16. Update your classroom rules 17. Articulate the vision for your classroom 18. Practice giving positive constructive feedback 19. Give students ownership over certain tasks Part IV: Become a better teacher 20. Write out why the lesson is important 21. Draft or edit student learning objectives 22. Assess without a test 23. Simplify your lesson 24. Tell a story in class 25. Change the way your students read their textbook 26. Plan an assign a project 27. Incorporate music into your day 28. Liberate students from their chairs 29. Review a lesson from the past 30. Visualize a lesson in action 31. Become a witness