I’m proud to announce that I will be authoring “What’s Your Catholic IQ?” – a regular feature of Catechist Magazine, beginning with the September, 2008 issue! This feature – 20 multiple choice questions (and insightful answers) about all aspects of our Catholic faith – is a self-assessment for readers’ fun and enlightenment. For years, this popular feature has been written by Page McKean Zyromski. I’m honored to be following in her footsteps to provide this […]
For this evening’s class, I plan to focus on the Ten Commandments. One of the things that the Confirmation assessment revealed is that many of the young people in my group do not know the Commandments well at all. Here’s my plan: Two Sides to Every Coin – I’ll begin by flipping a coin several times, asking different young people to call out “heads” or “tails.” I’ll use this to illustrate that, just as every coin […]
Tonight, we enter into the post-confirmation era which begins with the big question: will they be back? Last year, all of the confirmandi returned for religious education classes after the sacrament was celebrated. Our DRE does a good job of communicating to parents that confirmation is NOT the end of the the religious education program. Let’s hope the message got through again this year. Even so, tonight’s class will be somewhat smaller than usual because […]
Looking forward to Monday, it will be the first time in a while that I’ve had an entire period with my students! It’ll be nice to have a solid block of time with them again. This Monday is the confirmation assessment that I’ve alluded to before. It will be very interesting to see how well the young people can recall basic information about their faith. I also look forward to talking with them about their […]
In two weeks (we have no class this coming Monday), the 8th graders will be given their Confirmation Test/Assessment. As I’ve been explaining to them, this is not a pass or fail proposition, but rather, an assessment of each student’s grasp of the basic content of the Catholic faith. For those who do not do well on the assessment, my aide and I will design some steps to take to assist them in grasping the […]
Last night, we took our classes to church for the Lenten Sacrament of Reconciliation. For the most part, they behaved very well and it was a very nice service (it includes individual confessions which means the kids need to behave for a long stretch of time). My aide, Kris, and I were talking afterwards about how funny the kids can be. While some of the behavior can be a bit maddening, most of it makes […]
The program I serve in issues report cards at the middle and end of the program. Tonight, I’ll work on these for the “1st semester.” They are very basic…I indicate their attendance record, provide a “rating” on some basic criteria and then write a comment. A grade (A, B, C, etc.) is not involved. These are to be ready by Wednesday so that they can be organized in time for next Monday when we will host […]
Here’s my plan for this evening’s session: We will complete the church history Powerpoint that we began last week (we have 2 more time periods to go through). Throughout the Powerpoint, the young people have been filling in a note-taking sheet with pertinent names and dates. When we are finished, we’ll review the info on the note-taking sheets and then I’ll arrange them into 5 small groups (2 or 3 in each group) and assign […]
For next week’s session, I plan to do a review of what we have covered so far. We’re at a transition point between units and I’d like to be able to reinforce some of the important concepts that we’ve covered so far. The Finding God Catechist Guide that I’m using comes with Blackline Masters that include unit tests. The program I teach in does not do testing per se (except for an assessment at the […]
I have an article appearing in September issue of Catechist Magazine titled, “Assessment in Catechesis.” I hope you get a chance to peruse it and the many of the other fine resources offered in this excellent magazine. Also, I received a nice plug from Gilles Côté in his Catholic Educator News about my blog and about The Catechist’s Toolbox. Thanks, Gilles! Don’t forget to visit his website, 4Catholiceducators.com. P.S. Tonight is my first catechist meeting […]
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