FAQs: Curriculum Related

C. CURRICULUM RELATED QUESTIONS
1. Where did the old Sabbath School lessons come from?
_____In the 1940's a committee tried to figure a way to teach all the main stories of the Bible to children in 4 years. Later another committee compressed all of those stories into 3 years. From time to time the General Conference would bring together a group of writers and rewrite the stories, just as they have done with GraceLink.

2. Where did the GraceLink materials come from?
The following timeline briefly explains the development of GraceLink:

Manuscripts are edited at the GC Sabbath School department and then sent to the world divisions to be translated and printed. The GC has taken responsibility for printing the materials for North America. However, NAD pays for a French translation, printed by Inter-American Division. Spanish churches in NAD use the Spanish translation from Inter-American division.

4. Where did the name GraceLink come from?
_____The church chose this name because Grace is our central belief; grace is a word that implies salvation through Jesus. Grace links all of the curriculum dynamics and all facets of our Christian life.

5. What does the teacher's quarterly mean when it talks about four different kinds of learners?
_____Educational research shows that there are at least 4 different kinds of learners. While everyone uses all four learning styles, an individual usually prefers one style over the others. Each type of learner has their own needs and preferences.

imaginative (relational, sensitive)	analytic (thinker)
common sense (experimenter)	dynamic (doer)

6. Why do we need to pay attention to learning styles?
_____ Because each one is looking for a different learning experience, the different types of learners experience God in different ways too. For instance, imaginative learners want to express their feelings about God. They think that there's something seriously amiss when dynamics talk about God in intellectual terms only, and dynamic learners tend to characterize talk about one's feelings for God as shallow and sentimental.
_____Would you like to find out more about learning styles and why they make a difference in Sabbath School? AdventSource offers a video and booklet, Learning in Styles, that explains learning styles and the learning techniques that appeal to each.

7. How do GraceLink lessons provide for learning differences?
_____The Sabbath School teaching material provides tasks or activities for each learning style, in order to complete a learning cycle for the lesson. We call this method of teaching Total Time Learning. We spend time on each style to answer its particular learning question, as follows:

Style 1:	Why do I need to learn this? (Kids do readiness activities that prepare them for the topic and show why they need to know about it.)
Style 2:	What do I need to know about this? (Kids dig into the Bible, concordances, and maps to learn all they can about the subject.)
Style 3:	How does this work for me? (Kids apply what they've learned to real life problems. They figure out what advice they might give to someone in a similar situation.)
Style 4:	What if . . . (Kids find ways to adapt the information for their own use and then share it with family, neighbors, or friends. Often they make something in Sabbath School that they can use for sharing what they've learned with others.)