Closure

    In all of my classes I am always trying to teach for transformation—some change in the students. For example, in my Doctoral Seminar on Teaching, I was trying to motivate 15 doctoral students toward becoming master teachers. Closure helps hold me accountable for seeing the teaching impact.

Defintion
A master teacher is one who teaches with impact, models what impactful teaching is, and develops others to be master teachers.

             What do I mean by impactful teaching?

   The master teacher has a learning posture, which is modeled so as to spill over to the students. The master teacher has a passion to communicate so folks get it. The master teacher has a learning mindset—that is he/she has a strong sense of responsibility that must see the student learn—i.e. get it and use it.  In short, the master teacher sees repeated closure on material (during the exposure to the teaching/learning process and for the process as a whole). I use the closure definition given below to help me assess how well a class has finished.

    Early on in my Navigator training, I was taught always to apply the word of God. That was a personal responsibility for me.  Now I want to state that Closure is the responsibility of a teacher to insure that truth is being applied. Both teachers and preachers, as well as, hearers should become responsible for applying truth.

       Closure training refers to the completion of an integrated unit of study in which, the learner,
          1.   has a psychological sense of finishing a unified block of input
                including cognitive information, affective value changes, willful
                decisions to use or follow learning, and experiential skills,
          2.   has changed one-or-more inner values as a result of the
                dynamic of the training,
          3.   has one-or-more new perspectives that can be applied
                directly to ministry (sense of relevance),
          4.   has an approach attitude toward the subject matter of
                the material,
          5.   has sensed a touch with God in the learning process,
       and the facilitator has some accountability measures for each of the five elements.

    Anecdotally, comments like “life-changing,” “everybody ought to study this,” “this is a turning point for me,” and “God was in this for me,” accompany impactful teaching.

   My Final Day Exercise is one of the effective methodologies I use to help me assess closure for a whole class over a quarter. The above closure definition is basically talking about bringing some finality to a class taught over time. I want to go further and talk about individual sessions of input.

    When I advanced my Titus inputs dealing with the leadership topic of application, I took my regular definition of closure, which I use in designing whole classes, and modified it to deal with public ministry (such as Sunday morning sermons or workshops or seminars). Here is how I defined that modified closure and expanded the notion of closure to public services like Sunday preaching or seminar presentations or workshop presentations. Here is what I came up with to help me think of public ministry closure.

Definition
Closure for public ministry refers to a designated time for the application of truth to lives which depends:
     1. On a previous time of persuasive explanation of
         some truth from the Word,
     2. On a sensitivity to the Spirit’s moving in the
         hearers,
     3. On a creative risk of faith on the part of the
         speaker to challenge listeners to use the Word
         they have heard.

Conclusion

    What happens publicly in closure activities ought to be an ongoing daily thing. People must be taught to hear God’s truth and respond in obedience to it. The average church goer does not know how to read the Word of God and apply it to his or her life. I have written a self-study (programmed) article defining application giving suggestions on how to do it. This methodology applies to a hearer or someone studying the Bible. Teachers and preachers who want to bring closure should make sure their hearers know these basic notions of application. If you are interested in it just click on  HowToApplyWord.pdf

   Bring closure to your inputs and make sure you are applying truth to the hearers. Help hearers and students learn how to focus on application of truth to their lives.

 Blessings,
 Bobby Clinton