The age of the students, however, is only one of the issues involved in choosing the appropriate teaching method. Another major factor is the objective of the lesson . Apart from the crucial concern for biblical theology, there is nothing more important in preparing to teach than a clarification of objectives. In 14 years of preparing college and seminary students to be teachers, I have found their major collective hang-up to be clumsy construction of teaching objectives. As Findley Edge has well reminded us, good teaching objectives should be brief enough to be remembered, clear enough to be written down, and specific enough to be achieved.
More recent emphases focus on the necessity of formulating objectives in terms of student behavior.
Such an objective is brief, clear, specific, and describes something that the teacher wishes to happen in the life of the student. When this kind of objective is developed, the road to selection of method can be walked more Y. A third factor influencing the method selected is the content of the lesson itself. A historical lesson from the book of Acts for high schoolers could lend itself well to an illustrated presentation with the use of good Bible maps. On the other hand, the principles of Christian separation expounded by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 would be handled better in that same class through open discussion. One danger teachers face is the constant temptation to offer excuses for lack of variety in teaching methodology.