What vocabulary words do your students need to learn?

13/04/07 12:31 Filed in: Vocabulary
You: I need to get a stable job.

Me: Do you mean you need a steady job or you need to get a job in a stable?

Imagine the confusion if you and I aren’t clear on what you mean when you say “stable.” Now imagine the confusion if you and your students aren’t clear on what you mean when you use certain words. Words like abortion, abuse, animism, Buddhism, capital punishment, capitalism, civil disobedience, common grace, communism, image bearer of God, perspective, shalom, and worldview.

What if your students aren’t sufficiently clear on key vocabulary words that they’re expected to use when completing a biblical perspective assessment?

Yes, understanding vocabulary words is a key student learning need. You can help your students increase their understanding and use of a biblical perspective by using the IDEAL process to address this learning need:
  • Identify the problem: Your students aren’t performing as well as they could on your biblical perspective assessments.
  • Define the problem: You talk with your students and review the last biblical perspective assessment. You determine that your students don’t sufficiently understand key vocabulary terms.
  • Explore the problem: You develop a list of vocabulary terms. You do this by asking students which words they do not fully understand and by identifying key vocabulary terms. You develop your next biblical perspective assessment, and identify the vocabulary words your students need to have a working knowledge of in order to complete it.
  • Act: You use effective teaching strategies to engage your students in learning the vocabulary terms and then have your students apply their learning on a biblical perspective assessment.
  • Look at the results: That’ll have to wait until after your students take your biblical perspective assessment.
Meet your students’ learning needs. Help them understand key vocabulary terms.

Here’s a sample vocabulary list:
  1. Abortion
  2. Abuse
  3. Animism
  4. Birth control
  5. Buddhism
  6. Capital punishment
  7. Capitalism
  8. Civil disobedience
  9. Common grace
  10. Communism
  11. Competition
  12. Creationism
  13. Crime
  14. Dance
  15. Death
  16. Deism
  17. Disabilities
  18. Discrimination
  19. Divorce
  20. Drug abuse
  21. Ecology
  22. Entertainment
  23. Euthanasia
  24. Evolution
  25. Existentialism
  26. Exploitation
  27. Fair trial
  28. Film arts
  29. Gambling
  30. General revelation
  31. Health
  32. Hinduism
  33. Homosexuality
  34. Image bearer of God
  35. Integrity
  36. Islam
  37. Labor unions
  38. Law
  39. Modernism
  40. Moral absolutes
  41. Moral relativism
  42. Nihilism
  43. Pacifism
  44. Pantheism
  45. Perjury
  46. Pornography
  47. Post-modernism
  48. Poverty
  49. Power
  50. Property
  51. Racism
  52. Recycle
  53. Sabbath
  54. Special revelation
  55. Stewardship
  56. Success
  57. Technology
  58. Theism
  59. War
  60. Wealth
  61. Worldview