On Wednesday 26 April 2023, a group of 30 students from the Department of Theology, NKUA, attended a 2-hour model teaching in the subject of Religious Education carried out by the R.E. teacher Sotirios Kollias. The teaching was realized in the unit ?Forgiveness as transcendence in Christianism? of B class and was carried out according to the new pedagogical methods of experiential learning of the new National Curriculum in Religious Education, following the four basic stages of teaching:
After the pupils were divided in groups of 6, they sat in places that had already been set by the teacher.
Experiencing: The teacher carried out the activity ?Exploration box?, giving in this way to the students the possibility to guess who the box belongs to and as a result discover the unit topic through the exploratory and experiential teaching method.
Conceptualising: It was projected on the board a photograph and, through the activity ?Artful thinking?, pupils were asked to guess, wonder and express their thoughts and opinions about the subject of the picture.
Analysing: In the main stage of teaching, the teacher gave to the groups 6 different texts and pupils were asked to work in groups and fill in the evaluation worksheet that accompanied each text. Groups were given time to prepare themselves, choose a group representative and answer the questions. The representative presented their findings in the class plenary.
Implementing: In the last stage of experiential learning, pupils were asked by the teacher to stand up and form a circle in order to do the activity ?Thought discovery?. Following the teacher?s instructions, they followed his directives with the aim to feel on a personal level the central message of the unit and take a responsible stance expressing their own beliefs and opinions.
In the last activity entitled ?Letters?, pupils were asked to work in groups and write a short text, which expressed their feelings regarding the topic under study and put it in the ?Exploration box?, which would be finally given to its owner.
After the end of the model teaching, the teacher explained and analysed the four stages of his teaching, referring to the Expected Learning Results he had set in the beginning of his teaching, informed the university students about the new methods of pedagogical approach in the subject of Religious Education according to the philosophy of the new National Curriculum, and answered a big number of questions about the interesting experiential activities that he realized with our school pupils.
