Walking with ADDIE: Creating an Activity
When starting to develop activities for a curriculum remember the original goals for the overall curriculum. This article will walk you through an activity that was designed for a conference on a disciple making process.
The goal we were attempting to reinforce was: Transition points to a reproductive Church
Taking that goal and breaking it down some we came up with seven necessary ingredients to creating a reproductive Church. They are:
- Prayer – Depending & Following the Holy Spirit
- Train and Equip Disciple Makers
- Focus on the Mission & Casting Vision & Success Stories
- Track & Measure Progress (Spiritual Growth and Multiplication)
- Start & Invest in the Right People
- Keep it Reproducible/Sustainable
- Develop & Empower Leaders (Strategy)
We created several activities to help teach these principles and then we decided to do something to reinforce the main objective again. We decided that something light on the brain and interactive was the best option so we created an activity using Lego.
Some might wonder why we decided to use a kid’s toy to illustrate some very deep and important topics.
If you look back at all of your schooling you probably only remember a handful of lessons. The ones that first come to mind were the ones that were hands-on, engaging activities. That is the goal of this activity. It is to take the important objective, boil it down to its basics and then get the attendees involved.
Our activity involves a pre-set Lego kit. The design doesn’t matter, but it must be a kit. Small groups (2 to 4 participants) will be given a kit in the original packaging, minus the instructions and a few integral parts. Then after a few minutes of struggling they will be given the instructions as well. Some groups will manage to make something very similar to the originally intended result, but in the end it will not be correct. It might even look perfect, but it won’t function in the way designed.
What does this help our attendees remember? The purpose of this activity is for the attendees to see that each part of the discipleship making movement is necessary in order for it to look right and function correctly. If you don’t use all of the pieces it will be like forgetting to pray, or failing to develop leaders or something to that effect. It may look right, but it won’t get the job done. On the flip side you might use all of the correct pieces but instead of building a helicopter you build a windmill. This activity will help the attendees remember they need to use of the pieces in the correct way to achieve their goals.