For teachers: The Gospel of Mark Project - Using Co-construction Methods (Work in progress)

The principle in a using co-construction is that the whole class is involved and planning and delivering in this unit on Mark Gospel.They work with the teacher to plan the content, agree to the sequence of lessons, to deliver the whole or part of the lesson, to set and mark homework and to design assessments. I hope that the outcomes will be the same as those reported in the article, “Co-constructing your classes: Putting students in the driver's seat,”Empowered with this level of responsibility students come up with great ideas for lessons, discover or produce superb resources and demonstrate real authority in leading class discussions.

To start off, find out how much your students already know.

How much do you already know about Jesus?

If you have never heard of Jesus, what do you think a person who is God would do on earth?

Write it down in a mind map or paragraph or take a video of yourself talking about it.

Post it on a shared document for the groups to access and analyse. 

Show the class the video An Overview of Mark.

Go through the details of the “Gospel of Mark Project” on the header of that webpage.

Remind students that every student needs to read the whole of Mark at home to do the project.

Brainstorm ideas students could use to teach Mark creatively. If they have no ideas show them some examples.

Spend ten minutes of every lesson checking in on groups as they discuss and plan by asking the following questions:

Show me your plans on how you would teach the Gospel of Mark to your class.

How many lessons would you need? How long would you need to prepare the lessons?

What would you teach in each lesson? How would you do that?

Show me the resources you have made. Use the resources on the website to help you.

Do you think the jobs are fairly distributed?

Decide how you can tell if your classmates have learnt what you have taught.

How would you set and grade the assignments you have set?

After the students teach, get the rest of the class to summarise the key points in the lesson.

Give student-teachers encouraging feedback to their lessons and one tip on how to improve their next lesson.

At the end of the project, get students to self-reflect on their teaching and then as a group share what they have learnt from the 5 weeks.

Other ideas on how to co-construct projects can be found here.

This is an example of lesson plans on Mark in 5 weeks.

Other interesting Catholic resources written in Melbourne

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Possible approach for students who have other faiths is 

Lesson 1- Son of God. What does God look like for you and people in your country.  Jesus is the Son of God in Mark. What does that mean? How is Jesus (in Mark) similar and different from your view of God? Why do you think Jesus lived his life in this way. 

Lesson 2- The Messianic Secret. What is kept secret in your culture? What is considered good news that has to spread to friends and neighbours? Do you think Jesus wanted his identity kept secret? Why or why not. 

Lesson 3- Disciples. Who has a big following in your country? What are followers supposed to do? What are Jesus’ disciples like? How are they supposed to follow Jesus in the book of Mark?

Lesson 4- Servanthood. Do you have servants in your country? How are they expected to behave? What did Jesus teach about servanthood? How did he show it?

Lesson 5-How do you read the passages in Mark in detail. Use the 5 Rs method to study Mark

The 5 Rs method of reading narrative biblical text.

Retell- Retell a story you have read.

React - How did people respond to Jesus?

Reveal- What did this reveal about Jesus?

Reason- Why has Mark included this?

Respond- How do you think we should respond to this passage?