2019 Global Faculty Meeting Transcript: Instructions from Chad H Webb

Brother Chad H Webb: Welcome to our global faculty meeting. We wanted to talk about the changes that have been announced to the seminary calendar and curriculum. I know you’re very excited about the announcement and have some questions.

This slide is an illustration of a timeline as to where we’re headed with these changes. In March of 2019, the First Presidency announced the changes to the seminary calendar and curriculum and said it [the changes] would begin in June of 2019. Accordingly, we will be teaching the first half of the New Testament using the current seminary curriculum. Then in January of 2020, we will be teaching from the Book of Mormon, which is also the course of study for Come, Follow Me. But we’ll continue to use the current seminary curriculum. Then in January of 2021, we’ll use the current written curriculum to teach the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History. But then in January of 2022, we will teach the Old Testament from new manuals, with a new format.

Before the new manuals are completed, training will be provided. We’ve already provided training for area directors that will help them to continue to learn about and deepen their understanding of principles and processes associated with deep learning. In your next area in-service, your area directors and region directors will provide similar training to you. Then we’re asking you to go back to your faculties and throughout the year have faculty in-service training meetings based on these principles of deep learning.

Now, it’s not intended that these faculty in-services be too prescriptive. We want them to be an opportunity for you to continue to grow and deepen your understanding and ability to implement the principles and processes and the practices that will make a difference in blessing our students. We want you to discuss these principles and practices as a faculty. We hope you’ll identify methods and then practice those methods that grow out of the principles that you’ve discussed. And then we hope you’ll implement these things in your classes, and then come back and report to your faculties. Invite colleagues to watch you and discuss the experiences that you’re having. We want you to share with each other what you’re learning and help each other improve. Ultimately, we want every student to be blessed by these efforts.

Now, I will say this is primarily intended to be with faculty meetings for religious educators in released-time seminaries, campus institutes, or in-service groups for coordinators. However, coordinators can certainly teach these principles and practices, these skills that they’ll be practicing and training on, as they fit naturally in the in-services that you provide for called teachers. We don’t want to confuse them with new paradigms and different language, but we hope they’ll benefit from learning concepts and methods that will bless their students.

So, for example, as you learn about how to develop and increase your power and capacity to take effective, righteous action, you should feel free to teach those concepts to your called teachers. The better we become at teaching for deep learning, the more we’ll be able to help our called teachers by providing training that is more focused on the experiences they need, as well as teaching principles and processes that bring about more effective learning experiences in the classroom.

So as participants in your faculty meetings, I invite you to take them very seriously, to be willing and good students. I believe the Lord wants to teach you. And if you will approach this opportunity as you hope your students approach your classes, with open minds and humble hearts, He will do marvelous things through personal revelation that will come to you.

We invite you to be open to new ideas and ways of teaching. The success of these experiences will not be written into the in-service curriculum lessons as much as it will come from the shared experiences you will have as you seek revelation. Imagine the growth you will see and feel as you counsel together and observe one another, as you give and receive feedback to each other in your efforts to implement deep learning.

As participants in faculty meetings, we hope you’ll give your very best in allowing the Lord to teach and prepare you for what He wants you to understand so as to bless His children in your classrooms.

I recently met with an institute faculty in Salt Lake and talked about this idea and asked them what they thought about having opportunities to talk about deep learning as faculties, to identify principles and what practices would grow out of those principles and go and implement them into their classrooms, to come watch each other, and then come back and talk about those things. And they said they would be thrilled to have the opportunity to do that, to really wrestle with these ideas and deepen their understanding and their abilities. And I actually said to them, "Would you really do that, though?" And they said, "We would. We would love to do that, we would love that opportunity for that to be our faculty in-services and the experience we have together as a faculty."

I would love for every faculty and every cluster grouping in the world to have this kind of an experience that will help them to improve both their skills, but also in receiving revelation, as to how they might bless their students. So, I want you to spend just a few minutes when this . . . broadcast is over, if you’re with your faculties, and start to make plans as to how you might do that as this training rolls out.

I also want to spend just a few minutes and talk with you about the new curriculum. There’s been some misunderstanding and even some assumptions made

So first of all, I would refer you to the Employee Intranet website and the FAQ sheet for some accurate information. I’d like to highlight a few of those answers and say just a few words about this new curriculum —primarily what it is and also what it is not.

So, what it is, is a home-centered, seminary-supported curriculum and calendar. That principle has guided the decisions we have made.

What it’s not, however, is the use of Come, Follow Me curriculum in seminary. It’s not an alignment, week by week, of what we’ll be studying in the home. Seminary will have a nine-month curriculum while Come, Follow Me has a twelve-month curriculum. It will not be perfectly aligned for that reason. However, the seminary curriculum will be supportive of the home. Students sometimes will have read and studied relevant scriptures at home first and will bring those family or personal study experiences to seminary. Sometimes they will have studied these truths these in seminary first, and what they learn will then go into their home study and bless their families.

The new manuals will be doctrinally based. What that means is, we hope that we can take everything we love about sequential teaching, as well as the benefits of a thematic study of the scriptures, and to benefit from the idea of focusing on student learning outcomes. So, the new manuals will be firmly rooted in the scriptures. They’ll teach the principles the Lord has couched within the stories of the scriptures. They’ll provide the context in which those principles are taught and draw on the power that comes only from the word of God.

In order to be effective doctrinal teachers using these new manuals, we must be effective at teaching sequentially. We believe that our focus on sequential teaching has been what we needed in the past and will now prepare us for this different style of teaching.

In addition to the sequential nature of covering books of scripture and having driving blocks of scripture, we’ll also want to take advantage of the benefits of a topical or conceptual approach to the scriptures. Certainly, there are some benefits to studying the major themes of scripture, of identifying patterns and making connections, of studying the same principle across the breadth of scripture and even multiple for multiple scriptures. We’ll now be able to gather different sermons, examples, illustrations, and particular points of doctrine and give it the necessary time that it takes for a student to learn deeply.

We hope this approach will free teachers up from the pressures of covering everything and allow them to focus on what their students need the most.

We’ve also identified that there’s some significant things that we can do to bless students by looking at curriculum that is learning-outcome based. We hope for classroom experiences that focus on what students learn and also what they will be able to do when the course is completed. And we’re designing the curriculum with those experiences in mind. We all hope our students will prepare to be missionaries and fathers and mothers and serve in the Church as disciples of Jesus Christ. We hope to provide experiences that deepen faith, help them explain gospel principles to others, and prepare them for all the Lord would have them accomplish.

Our curriculum writers therefore have been tasked to write curriculum that draws from the benefits of a sequential approach, the benefits of a thematic approach, and includes a focus on learning outcomes. And we’ve chosen to call this a doctrinal approach to scripture teaching and study.

So beginning in 2022, the four courses will be called: Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Covenant, The Ministry and Teachings of Jesus Christ and His Apostles, Another Testament of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ and the History of His Restored Church.

Again, to be clear, what it’s not is abandoning the scriptures. It’s not going back to where we were 30 years ago when we sometimes taught topics independent of the scriptures. It’s not a class on ethics; it’s not the topic of the day.

We’ll still be rooted in the scriptures. And we’ll focus on major themes and gospel principles and on outcomes we hope for every student in our seminary classes. The themes that will be collected will grow out of the scriptures and will be focused on our Heavenly Father and His plan, on Jesus Christ and His atonement, His teachings, His example, and His divine, enabling power to lift and bless and heal us.