"I hate physics!"
 
That's what students often wrote on Eric Mazur's course evaluations. He was the Professor of Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and he was struggling to keep his students engaged.
 
In her article, "The Benefits of Interactive Learning," Jill Anderson writes about Professor Mazur's journey toward interactive teaching methods. In the article, she says, "Mazur shared a photograph of his early days teaching, in which he was shown hunched over a projector, disengaged from the students. The students looked equally unengaged with the lesson. Describing the scene as a “transfer of information,” he noted that there was a “lack of learning and retention” from his lectures.
 
From that point on, Professor Mazur began experimenting with different ways to make his lessons more interactive. Instead of telling his students what he wanted them to know, he began experimenting with methods that would help them discover it on their own. Anderson explains how:
"As a brief demonstration, Mazur posed a multiple choice question to the Master Class audience. Using a handheld polling mechanism, he asked the crowd to select an answer. Then, he encouraged the audience to talk with a neighbor who had selected a different response and attempt to persuade their classmate to change his or her answer. After several minutes of discussion, Mazur asked the audience to once again answer via the polling mechanism. By the time Mazur revealed the right answer to the question, he noted that he had the attention of everyone in the room."
 
Let me repeat those last words for emphasis: "He had the attention of everyone in the room."
 
Isn't that what we all want in our kidmin rooms?
 
The Gospel message is the most important message a kid could ever hear, but if we don't have their attention, they won't hear it. If our lessons are more like a "transfer" of Biblical information, we probably won't see the learning results or, more importantly, the life change that we're hoping for.
 
But it doesn't have to be that way. When Professor Mazur began making his lessons more interactive, he saw an immediate increase in attention and learning. “What I was able to show is that I doubled the learning gains. In fact, it tripled once I got better questions to ask in class and also much longer retention,” Mazur said. “I’ve never looked back.
 
And neither will you!
 
With a few simple changes, you can grab your kid's attention while doubling or even tripling the amount of learning results and, more importantly, life change.
 
So with no further ado, here are 5 ways you can do that:
 
1. Make kids the object of the object lesson. Object lessons are fun to watch, but they're even more fun to be a part of. Ask yourself, "Is there a way to replace the object with a kid?" For example, instead of loading a backpack down with rocks, then placing it on a kid to illustrate the heaviness of sin, have some other kids latch onto the "sinners" ankles, then have the sinner try to walk while dragging the dead weight. It's kind of funny to watch and the kids will love it! At the very least, if you can't substitute the object with a kid, choose some kids to help perform the object lesson.
 
2. This or That. Poll the kids to see how they feel about a certain idea or moral choice. Should Noah have let more people on the ark? Would you have insisted that Israel choose a king? Should you invite a kid from school who bullies you to your birthday party? Have the kids who feel one way go to one side of the room and the kids who feel the other way go to the other side. Then give them turns to try and convince kids from the opposite side to change their mind and join them.
 
3. Brain storm. This is great to use after the Bible story when you're trying to help your kids apply the lesson. Give them a real-life scenario, then have the kids pair up and brainstorm ideas for how they could respond in that situation. For example, after hearing the story of the 10 Lepers, ask the kids how they could show compassion to people who feel like they're the outcasts at school. Let them share ideas with each other for 2 or so minutes before asking the groups to report back, then create an action list.
 
4. Worship response stations. This helps foster the most important interaction that could happen in your kidmin--interaction between the kids and God. After the message is over, allow kids to quietly move to different worship stations. Here are a few station ideas. Prayer Station: let kids write their prayers on a note card, then hang them from a clothesline or put them in a mailbox. Art Station: put out a big piece of butcher-block paper with some markers, paints, or play dough and let the kids express their heart to God through art. Journal Station: put out some notebooks and direct kids to journal how they're feeling or to write a letter to God. Bible Reading Station: put out some Bibles and let the kids read the story they heard straight from the Bible. Tell the kids they have to do this very quietly. You'll be amazed at what a sweet time of worship it is!
 
5. Invite the kids to join the story. The storytelling time is probably the best time to involve kids, but let's go beyond the traditional "put-costumes-on-kids-and-have-them-act-the-story-out" thinking. In the GO! Curriculum, we've come up with dozens of different ways to make the Bible storytelling interactive. I wrote about this more extensively in two previous blogs at www.imdavidrausch.com. Search for “interactive storytelling ideas” in the search box.
 
Here's the great part...you can use ANY of these ideas with ANY curriculum out there. But there's an even better option! These interactive methods are already a part of GO! Curriculum. I've spent the past 5 years making GO! the most interactive curriculum you can find. It's designed to help kids join the story of God's love and redemption. 
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David Rausch has been in children’s ministry for over 20 years. He is the creator of GO! Curriculum. Prior to that, David was on staff with the Promiseland children’s ministry at Willow Creek Community Church. His passion is for resourcing and training people to plant the Word of God in the hearts of children. You can find KidMin related articles from David at www.imdavidrausch.com