Initiative 1: Invite Diligent Learning

Yaw A. Danso: Brothers and sisters, we welcome you to the annual training broadcast for Seminaries and Institutes of Religion originating in Salt Lake City, Utah. My name is Yaw Danso, and I serve as an Associate Administrator of Seminaries and Institutes of Religion. We extend a heartfelt welcome to you, our teachers and leaders, viewing this broadcast in approximately 170 countries. We love and appreciate each of you and are deeply grateful for your service. We hope this broadcast strengthens and lifts you and ask that the Spirit of the Lord will inspire you to understand what will be discussed. We are grateful to be joined by Elder Clark G. Gilbert of the Seventy, who serves as the Commissioner of the Church Educational System, and Brother Chad H Webb, Administrator [of Seminaries and Institutes of Religion], and the Associate Administrators of Seminaries and Institutes here with us today. Joining Elder Gilbert and Brother Webb are employees from 10 different areas across the world who will have a part in the broadcast today.

We will begin our broadcast with a choir of institute students from Salt Lake City, Utah. They will sing “There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today.”

Following the hymn, “There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today,” Mark Macdonald will offer the invocation.

Mark Macdonald: Our Father in Heaven, we are grateful for this gathering today and thankful for those who have assembled and those who will assemble throughout the world, grateful for their consecration. We thank Thee for this program and for the opportunities to be with the young people of the Church. Please bless us and this training that it might change the way that we look at things and that it will help us to better bless Thy youth and young adults. We ask You to please bless those who teach in the classrooms and help them to be able to focus on Christ and His Atonement to better help our young people have faith in Jesus Christ and hope in Him. Please be with us at this time we pray. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Yaw A. Danso: Thank you for the beautiful music and heartfelt prayer.

Elder Gilbert and Brother Webb will guide the rest of this meeting. They will be discussing five initiatives that we are working on across all of Seminaries and Institutes. They are:

1. Invite Diligent Learning

2. Retain All Students with a Special Focus on Helping Seminary Students Transition to Institute

3. Invite Members and Friends to Participate

4. Amplify Prophetic Messages

5. Implement Life Preparation Lessons

At the conclusion of Elder Gilbert’s testimony, Todd Merrill will say the benediction.

Elder Clark G. Gilbert: Thank you, Brother Danso.

The format for this meeting will be different than most meetings. We have asked you to prepare ahead by considering questions about the five themes Brother Danso mentioned. We’re going to spend time discussing these topics and the efforts and progress made around the world. These are not new themes—they’re things we’ve been emphasizing for the past several years. We invite you to be an active learner, both as you reflect on what’s happening in each section and as you follow up with your faculty. I promise you that as you engage personally in this training, the Spirit will inspire you to see opportunities to improve in your role and responsibilities. Please write down the impressions you receive from the Holy Ghost so that you can continue these conversations and take action after this broadcast.

For each initiative, we will learn about inspired efforts made in several areas around the world. We will then have a discussion with some of those involved in these efforts who are with us today.

Elder Gilbert: Our first initiative is “Invite Diligent Learning”—one of the most important ways we develop lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ. When President D. Todd Christofferson spoke to us in the Religious Educators Conference last June, he said:

“It is essential that we teach in a way that invites students to exercise their agency in the learning process. We want to help them become active participants in the process and take responsibility for their own learning. Activating students’ agency to take personal ownership in learning has implications for the development of lasting belief, lasting testimony. It is in so doing that they can become active and lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ.”

He then pointed us to the Savior’s examples of inviting diligent learning when he taught:

“Jesus didn’t just tell His disciples what they should do, nor did He do everything for them. He taught in ways that required them to think, to participate, discuss, and apply His teachings. Because of this, when the Savior was no longer with His disciples in person, they were more prepared to receive and be led by the Holy Ghost in acting for themselves.”

When I spoke to you in last year’s annual training broadcast, I gave the following invitations:

“I hope we can see our students the way that God sees them, recognizing that the power is in them and that from God’s vantage point we are all capable of learning when given equal opportunities to act and use our agency. … I hope you will reflect on ways you can invite diligent learning, as if there are areas you can improve. And I pray that the Spirit will help illuminate those opportunities in your own teaching.”

Today, I’m excited to see how the following areas are inviting diligent learning. We will first hear from the South America Northwest area, followed by the Asia area.

Elder Clark G. Gilbert: Those are such wonderful examples of students taking responsibility for their learning. Today we have with us in person Brother Henry Herrera,from the South America Northwest Area and Brother Riley Wang from the Asia Area. Thank you both for being with us today.

Brother Herrerra, I loved listening to your team discuss how to help students come to class prepared to learn by sending out preparation material prior to class. What else have you done that has helped students come prepared to learn?

Henry Herrera: Well, in addition to that, in the wards and stakes, the seminary and institute supervisors are doing a great job because they are taking time every week—every week—to give training to the teachers to help them develop these skills, like invite diligent learning. So it has a great impact on the students because after that the students are more active and participating during the class. It’s awesome.

Elder Clark G. Gilbert: That’s great.

Brother Chad H Webb: If I may, may I ask a follow up question? So you provide the training, and then your stake supervisors visit the classes and provide follow up and feedback for the teachers on what you’ve trained.

Henry Herrera: Yes.

Brother Chad H Webb: And what’s the most effective part or the most important part of the training you provide?

Henry Herrera: I think the most important part of this training is the practice. They need to practice. Practice many times, and when they do that, they achieve the goals quickly.

Brother Chad H Webb: That’s really wonderful. Thank you.

Brother Wang, I was really impressed as well to hear about your area’s efforts to invite your students to live the gospel outside of class. What has been the most effective in helping your students follow through on those invitations?

Riley Wang: In Teaching in the Savior’s Way, there is a way that our teacher found to be very effective. Let me read it to you: “Extend invitations that inspire learners to improve but are not overwhelming. Follow up and invite learners to share their experiences.” This approach includes three key principles. First, extending invitations. Second, following up. And third, inviting students to share their experiences.

In our area, our teachers invite students to make a simple plan for the coming week, and then in the following class, they ask them how things went and what the students learned. Because time is set aside each week for sharing, often with light refreshment, this becomes a regular practice in the class. Students know the teacher will follow up. While some students may forget, those who remember and act on the invitation usually gain meaningful experiences.

Elder Clark G. Gilbert: Doing that is so powerful, and I love that it’s just part of our routine that we extend invitations that go beyond the classroom and help the students see that the goal of institute or seminary isn’t what’s just happening in the class, but it’s who they become beyond the class. So thank you, Brother Wang.

We will now take a question for Brother Herrera that was sent in from the Utah Salt Lake Area.

Henry Herrera: Well, I think when students prepare with anticipation, they usually want to share their spiritual experiences with others. So when they do that, there is a very, very special environment at the classroom at that moment. So I think it touches the hearts of the students and even of the teacher as well. It is a really, really amazing experience for the students.

Brother Chad H Webb: I love what you’re both saying. I love that Elder Gilbert taught us last year it’s a simple thing to remember: What can we do before class? How can they prepare to learn? How can they engage while they’re with us and sharing what they’re learning and being engaged and active learners? And then how can we invite them to act in faith after class so that they can put those principles and promises to the test and grow their testimonies by their own experience? And what you’re doing is leading to those kinds of deepening conversion experiences. So thank you.

Elder Clark G. Gilbert: And I love your response to this question: that it’s one thing to ask the students prepare, but there’s a bit of a social contract. If they prepare and they don’t have a chance to use what they prepared in class, than the incentive and motivation to prepare can dissipate. And I think the question here from Salt Lake was, you know, how does that preparation invite the Holy Ghost? It invites it when they have a chance to share what they’ve prepared. So thank you for this important discussion.

We invite you to have a similar discussion with your faculty groups and hope you’ll be inspired to deepen your own efforts to invite diligent learning in your own teaching this coming year. As you strive to invite diligent learning, I promise you, you will see miracles happen in your students lives and that they will learn in ways that help them become lifelong disciples of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Brother Chad H Webb: Thank you. And thank you, Elder Gilbert.