Facilitator: Mark Oestreicher

 

Hello, seminar attendees!  Here’s the scoop on this open-sourced seminar:  my hope is that all of us will leave this 90-minutes with an actual teaching/small group/interactive series of middle school curriculum.  I’m thinking something in the realm of 3 – 6 sessions (though, if we have a good amount of people who are highly involved, we might be able to make it longer – hey, maybe we should shoot for 4 session per NYWC city, which would give us a 12-week series at the end, and I could send the whole batch out to everyone who participated.  What do you think?).  Since it’s open-source, I need your collaboration now, on the basic plan; and then I’ll need it again as we approach the convention, to pull together potential ideas for the teaching series.

If you’re going to attend this seminar, I really want your collaborative input.  If you’re not going to attend this seminar, feel free to watch the process, but please allow the collaboration (and input) to be for those who will be attending.

Let’s start with this – I’ll spend 30-ish minutes doing a bit of an overview of curriculum development and learning theory; something like this:

 

Overview of curriculum development

1.    understanding your audience

2.    how middle schoolers hear you, what they understand and don’t understand

3.    choosing topics (I’ll want various people to speak into this one)

4.    choosing a point

5.    thinking through an outline (like: hook, book, look, took)

 

A bit of learning theory

1.    understanding the cycle of learning (recall, value, speculation, trying, doing)

2.    formal, non-formal, and null curriculum

Then, we’ll divide up into groups and put together some outlines.  We’ll do this in groups, then come back as a whole and walk through each session, tweaking, prodding, plussing, ideating, editing.

 

 

here's the notes from our time together, folks -- from the lesson we worked on together.  i 

have to admit, it's doesn't ALL make sense to me -- we were pretty rushed at the end there (sorry about that)!

 

Collaboratively Created outline for a Middle School Ministry lesson

Sacramento

 

Theme:  God’s love for you

 

One point:  God’s love is seriously ridiculous

 

Scripture:  Hosea and Gomer

 

So what?  (implications):

-    Feel included by God

-    Understand that God is for me

-    Understand the value of people

-    Understand the heart of God

 

Hook:  personal illustration of interaction with a prostitute (setting up the shocking nature of the Bible story)

 

Talking points:  (this group didn’t come up with talking points, per se, but suggested a couple approaches…)

-    purpose of a parable

-    tell the story in a creative way, like a modern context

 

Illustrations:  “What would you do for a buck?”  (use this crowdbreaker to getting paid to do something you wouldn’t normally do.)  (marko note: ha.  i’m not so sure about this one – could imply that the kids are prostitutes!  Use with care!)

 

Movement:  post-it note affirmations (make sure leaders cover the kids others might miss.)  (marko note:  this might make a nice application/”took”)

 

Media ideas: 

-    Gump?

-    Music video about God’s love?

o    Third Day song – “Gomer”

o    Pedro the Lion song – “of priests and prostitutes”

 

Questions:  “desribe a time…”  (marko:  sorry, I don’t remember what this was)

 

Application: 

-    internal: journal about forgiveness

-    external:  ch 3, “go”  (marko: sorry, don’t remember what this was either!)