Adopting and Adapting Online Curriculum
There are many effective ways to prepare to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. This preparation always includes prayerfully studying the word of God and seeking the guidance of the Holy Ghost to know how to best help those you teach to be converted to Jesus Christ and His gospel. To accomplish this, be sure to study the scripture block in the Come, Follow Me schedule. This will help you in your lesson preparation as you review the curriculum. The curriculum will help you identify essential principles and doctrine in the scripture block, help students know, love, and follow Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and follow inspired patterns of effective teaching.
Consider this counsel by President Dallin H. Oaks of the First Presidency about using curriculum to prepare seminary lessons:
We first adopt, then we adapt. If we are thoroughly grounded in the prescribed lesson that we are to give, then we can follow the Spirit to adapt it. But there is a temptation, when we speak about this flexibility, to start off by adapting rather than adopting. It’s a balance. It’s a continual challenge. But the approach of adopting first and then adapting is a good way to stay on sound ground.
(“A Panel Discussion with Elder Dallin H. Oaks Links to an external site.” [Seminaries and Institutes of Religion satellite broadcast, Aug. 7, 2012], broadcasts.ChurchofJesusChrist.org)
- What does it mean to adopt and adapt curriculum as you prepare a lesson?
| Adopt | Adapt |
|---|---|
| Adopting the curriculum means seeking guidance from the Holy Ghost as you study the scriptures and the lesson in your teacher manual. This also includes carefully considering the purpose of the lesson overall as well as the different parts of the lesson. The curriculum helps you understand the scriptures, the intent of the inspired authors, the converting principles, and the basic Church doctrine. Trust the content of the curriculum, and use it in your classroom. | Adapting the curriculum means you customize the lesson as the Spirit directs in order to meet the needs of individual students and to help them succeed. |
President Henry B. Eyring helped us understand some reasons we may need to adapt the curriculum:
There are more suggestions for ideas to teach, ways to teach them, and cross-references to employ than any of us can use. … But since we want our students to inquire of the Lord so that they might be enlightened, we must bless them with example. To do that we could read the curriculum—every word. We might not have time to find and study every reference, but God knows our students. …
…The Lord knows perfectly what [students] know and what they need. He loves them and he loves us. And with his help we … choose not only those parts of the curriculum which allow us the full use of powers to teach but those which will bring down the powers of heaven on those students in our [class]. ("The Lord Will Multiply the Harvest Links to an external site.," [evening with a General Authority, Feb. 6, 1998], ChurchofJesusChrist.org)
- Why do you think it is important to first adopt what is in the lesson materials before adapting them?
- How might methods of preparing a lesson look different for a teacher who uses the curriculum and a teacher who doesn't?
What to Consider When Adapting Lessons
Here are some questions to consider as you adopt and adapt lesson materials:
- What is the purpose of the overall lesson as well as the different parts of the lesson?
- What is the intent of the inspired author, and is the adaptation I'm considering in harmony with it?
- What are my reasons for wanting to adapt the lesson? Is it simply a matter of personal preference, or will the change provide students with a better learning experience?
- Is my adaptation in harmony with the promptings of the Holy Ghost?
You are encouraged to adapt the online seminary curriculum to meet the needs of your students. Some adaptations you might make to the online curriculum could include:
- Revising a lesson activity to be more relevant and interesting to students.
- Deleting some content that may be too much or too difficult for students to understand.
- Replacing content with a video recording of you or of someone else testifying about a principle or doctrine in the scriptures or sharing a personal experience.
- Substituting a quotation with one that was given more recently or that is easier for students to understand.
Examples
Announcements
Sister Martin receives a message from one of her students containing a link to a recent Church video that touched that student’s heart. She was so moved by it and her student’s experience that she wants to share the video with her whole class that week before their class gathering. She finds the video on the Church website’s media library and includes the link to that video in a midweek announcement to her class. Without mentioning the original student’s name, she shares with her students that this video has blessed someone in the class and invites them to watch it and reflect on its message. She also invites her students to leave comments on the announcement about what they liked about the video.
Class Community Announcements
Brother Dube diligently prepared on the Friday before general conference to teach the lesson outlined in the curriculum for the coming Monday. To his amazement, he heard the prophet announce during conference that the first temple would be built in their area in the near future. Very few of his students have ever seen a temple in person. He knows that students will be anxious to talk about the temple and that many will have questions about it. He decides to edit the text of that week's Class Community discussion topic to be about temples. He asks students to share which temples they've seen in person if any, or which ones they would like to visit. Brother Dube then addresses the students' comments in their class gathering that week.
Discussion-type lessons
After studying the content of an upcoming discussion lesson, Sister Schmidt notices that the lesson includes a statement from an older general conference to help illustrate a point. She remembers a statement made in the most recent general conference that would be perfect for that lesson. Sister Schmidt feels that the more recent statement will accomplish the same purpose as the one found in the curriculum lesson. She posts a comment on the lesson and includes the text of the newer general conference statement, along with a link to the entire talk, and invites her students to read the newer talk. She also includes additional questions for students to ponder and respond to that align with the purpose of the lesson.
Locally-created material
Brother Pacini loves having student-led devotionals at the start of his class gatherings. He creates a page in his course with a table of all the gatherings in it so students can sign up for devotionals. He sets the page to be editable by students and tells them about it in their first gathering. Within a few weeks, all the spots are filled up and the class has devotionals at the start of every gathering!
Brother Pacini also wants to survey his students in advance of an upcoming gathering to find out which aspects of the Atonement his students most want to discuss during their time together. He creates a survey in Canvas with carefully chosen response options so he can tell by looking at the anonymous survey responses which topics students most want to discuss. He then uses that data to plan his class gathering time accordingly.