Summer Training #3 July 13, 2013

in attendance: Sisters MacGruder, Moulton, Freckleton, and Shimp. Pres Hulme, Bro Donat and Sister Christensen

Opening Song: "Books in the Book of Mormom" https://www.lds.org/music/library/childrens-songbook/the-books-in-the-book-of-mormon?lang=eng  CS p.119 Suggested to sing often the first few weeks of Seminary to get everyone to memorize the order of the  books.

Opening Prayer: Sis Shimp
Devotional-Sis. Shimp reminded us of a General Conf talk a while back by Elder Simmons https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/04/but-if-not?lang=eng  entitled "But if Not. . ." and beautifully tied it to where we are reading right now in the BOM--Alma 14 with Alma and Amulek
Making connections is definitely a skill we want our youth to learn.  Hopefully they will be able to give devotionals connecting things they learn and feel in their Sunday School YM/YW meetings, personal and family study.  These are my favorite devotionals personally. . . I got the kids trained to begin their devotionals like this with "while I was reading my scriptures last night. . . " to get a reverent shriek of joy out of me and piece of candy--I loved knowing they were thinking and fishing on their own time!

How to get from the devotional to the lesson for the day-
connect the point to one you will cover in the lesson
identify the basic doctrine and create an "if I. . . then I" principle to use as a challenge and/or record in scriptures or scripture journal

Readiness activity to begin each lesson:
Pictures
Personal story
Geography (map)
Summary of context
Review questions from yesterday's lesson
Open ended question to write about in their scripture journals

Teaching sequential scripture study https://si.lds.org/manual/gtl/teaching-the-scriptures-in-seminaries-and-institutes?lang=eng

Basic lesson outline--5 stages to get through:

• 1. Understand the Context and Content. 
• 2. Identify Doctrines and Principles. 
• 3. Understand the Meaning of Those Doctrines and Principles. 
• 4. Feel the Truth and Importance of the Principle or Doctrine through the Influence of the Spirit. 
• 5. Apply Doctrines and Principles.
  
  
  
  Be sure you've read GTL 3.1 to understand this and watch the accompanying videos.
  For our practice today we looked at 1 Ne 17 and began with how to divide up the chapter into teaching blocks or chunks:
  -use chapter heading
  -when speaker or action changes
  -according to the teacher's manual
• 1 Ne 17 has 2 basic teaching blocks: building ship and rebuking of Laman and Lemuel
• In first 6 verses we identified the basic doctrine of commandments and saw the built in principle in v. 3 beginning with "And thus we see" .  The if-then principle we created was if I keep the commandments, the Lord will bless me.  We worked on SEARCH and ANALYZE questions to draw this out . Read over https://si.lds.org/manual/gtl/teaching-methods-skills-and-approaches?lang=eng#5.1.1 to be sure you understand SEARCH questions and then https://si.lds.org/manual/gtl/teaching-methods-skills-and-approaches?lang=eng&deeplink=5.1.2 to check your undestanding of ANALYZE.  FEEL and APPLY will be covered at our CES training on Aug 3rd.  

How to use the quotations by the Brethren in the teacher's manual:

-for clarification or reinforcement

-read them

-watch the clip for the conference where it was given--primed first with a question of what to look for

-read, listen, watch, read again then write about in scripture journal

-assign quotes to individuals or groups to read and prepare a question to ask whole class

"Apply"--if I'm not going to build a ship anytime in the near future, what does this have to do with me...The church has vignettes of modern-day situations that are linked in the lesson prep materials online.  If your class is having difficulty applying the principles to themselves, consider showing them.  If you are logged in to si.lds.org, here's the one for 1 Ne 17: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/book-of-mormon/introduction-2-nephi?lang=eng#2012-08-1180-i-will-prepare-the-way

It is 13 mins so suggested to break it into smaller segments with dissussion questions in between to keep attention.

Each lesson should have an "apply" part with a  challenge to change, become or at least think about something.

Other issues that came up:
electronic or paper scriptures--stake has a statement that we will use again on this
youth reading one of the standard works for YM or another church program makes it hard to do RED for our curriculum--this is changing with the Come Follow Me program

Closing Prayer-Sister MacGruder
HOMEWORK:
Please review these videos before our next meeting:
https://si.lds.org/manual/gtl/fundamentals-of-gospel-teaching-and-learning?lang=eng#2.3  Elder Scott
https://si.lds.org/manual/gtl/teaching-the-scriptures-in-seminaries-and-institutes?lang=eng  watch all the examples for Luke Ch. 5
https://si.lds.org/manual/gtl/teaching-methods-skills-and-approaches?lang=eng Elder Scott
https://si.lds.org/resources/ajax/pages/color-box/play-video?lang=eng&vidId=2134484912001&bd=false  Come,Follow Me on asking questions


Next training meeting: Tues., July 23 from 7-8:30 at the UTSA Stake center.  Church dress.