Create a Pacing Guide Training

Introduction

In seminary, students study the gospel of Jesus Christ through both Scripture Course lessons and Life Preparation lessons. The following chart lists the different categories associated with these types of lessons.

Scripture Course lesson categories	Life Preparation lesson categories
Scripture Course lesson categories Lessons associated with the weekly Come, Follow Me schedule Assess Your Learning Doctrinal Mastery Practice	Life Preparation lesson categories Doctrinal Mastery: Finding Answers to My Questions Scripture Study Skills For the Strength of Youth: Making Choices Building Self-Reliance Physical and Emotional Health Preparing for Future Education and Employment Succeeding in School Missionary Preparation Temple Preparation Teachings of Church Leaders

When creating a pacing guide, it can be difficult to know when and how often to schedule these different types of lessons throughout the year. This training is intended to provide guidance to program administrators, coordinators, and teachers in creating a pacing guide that will ensure that these lesson categories are taught with the proper balance.

Principles to Follow When Creating a Pacing Guide

The following four principles can be helpful to understand and follow when creating a pacing guide.

Principle 1: Follow the weekly Come, Follow Me schedule when scheduling Scripture Course lessons

The content in Scripture Course lessons is intended to align with what students are studying individually and with their families at home. Therefore, teachers should generally teach Scripture Course lessons that occur in the same week they are scheduled in the Come, Follow Me manual. On occasion, Scripture Course lessons may be taught in seminary when they don’t align with the Come, Follow Me pacing, but these exceptions should be rare, and teachers should avoid teaching lessons that are far behind or ahead of Come, Follow Me.

Principle 2: Schedule Scripture Course and Life Preparation lessons appropriately each week.

Scripture Course lessons (including Doctrinal Mastery Practice and Assess Your Learning lessons) and Life Preparation lessons are important to the seminary experience. Strive to provide a balanced approach to the way you schedule these lessons each week. For example, on average in programs that meet five times per week, three Scripture Course lessons and two Life Preparation lessons would usually be taught.

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General Suggested Balance chart

There may be some weeks in which it would be appropriate to adjust this suggested balance. For example, during the Book of Mormon course, teachers could allocate more of their time to Scripture Course lessons during the week they are teaching about the Savior’s appearance recorded in 3 Nephi. There may be other weeks in which teachers could spend more time on Life Preparation lessons. To help teachers and program administrators make these decisions, the curriculum sometimes contains two or four Scripture Course lessons in a week rather than the usual three. Weeks like these can help you know when greater emphasis might be placed on Scripture Course or Life Preparation lessons. When there are fewer than three Scripture Course lessons, you could include more Life Preparation lessons that week. If there are more than three Scripture Course lessons, you could spend less time that week on Life Preparation lessons.

However, do your best to teach each of the Life Preparation lessons during the school year. Life Preparation lessons can be found after the Scripture Course lessons in the manual.

The following guidelines can help you make decisions about when to schedule the different categories of Life Preparation lessons.

Schedule a similar number of Life Preparation lessons for each half of the course. This will help teachers to have balance between Scripture Course and Life Preparation lessons throughout the year.
Ensure that the teachers you supervise teach the same Life Preparation lessons in the same half of the course. This will help prevent duplication of the Life Preparation lessons students will receive if they switch teachers after the completion of one half of the course.
Follow instructions given by local areas, regions, or programs. Local areas, regions, or programs may provide guidance about when to teach some or all of the Life Preparation lessons.
Refer to pacing suggestions in the Overview sections for each of the Life Preparation categories. Each category of Life Preparation lessons includes pacing suggestions in its “Overview” section. These suggestions can help you make decisions about when some of the Life Preparation lessons may best be taught. For example, in the “Preparing for Education and Employment” overview, the suggestion is made to teach the lesson titled “The Importance of Education” toward the beginning of the school year. The “Overview” sections can also provide guidance about certain Life Preparation lessons that are more effective when taught in sequence or close together.
Identify times of the year when students may benefit most from certain Life Preparation lessons. There may be times of the year when it would be best to teach certain Life Preparation lessons. For example, it may be best to teach Missionary Preparation lessons toward the end of the school year if there are students in a seminary class who will be leaving on missions soon. Or some of the Physical and Emotional Health lessons could be taught during a time of the year when students may feel higher levels of stress.
Identify Scripture Course lessons that relate to one of the categories of Life Preparation lessons. The Scripture Course lessons often contain content that Life Preparation lessons can build on. For example, you may want to schedule Temple Preparation lessons near scripture blocks that focus on the temple, such as Doctrine and Covenants 95; 109–10; 124; 127–28; Exodus 35–40; or 1 Kings 6–9.

Principle 3: Students should have regular opportunities to reflect, share, and demonstrate what they are learning.

The manual contains Assess Your Learning and Doctrinal Mastery Practice lessons that occur periodically throughout the Scripture Course lessons. These are important components of the students’ seminary experience. Assess Your Learning lessons give students opportunities to explain key doctrine and reflect on how they are growing spiritually. Participating in these lessons is also a requirement for students to receive seminary credit. Doctrinal Mastery Practice lessons provide opportunities for students to work toward achieving the outcomes of doctrinal mastery.

As you create your pacing guide, do not skip Assess Your Learning or Doctrinal Mastery Practice lessons that occur when seminary is in session. However, you do not need to move the Assess Your Learning or Doctrinal Mastery Practice lessons that would take place when students are out of school, such as summer or winter breaks.

Principle 4: Schedule Scripture Course lessons that you will later assess.

In some weeks, there may be more Scripture Course lessons that could be taught than days available to teach them. Therefore, decisions will often need to be made about which Scripture Course lessons to schedule. When making these decisions, prioritize Scripture Course lessons that (1) relate to what will be addressed in Assess Your Learning lessons and (2) contain doctrinal mastery passages. Doing so will make it more likely that the most relevant and doctrinally significant Scripture Course lessons are scheduled.

The following can help you know how to identify Scripture Course lessons that relate to Assess Your Learning and Doctrinal Mastery Practice lessons:

Identifying Scripture Course lessons that relate to Assess Your Learning lessons. Activities from various Scripture Course lessons are often referenced in the Assess Your Learning lessons. Reading through the Assess Your Learning lessons that you have scheduled can help you be aware of Scripture Course lessons that you could prioritize in your pacing guide.
Identifying Scripture Course lessons with doctrinal mastery passages. Each year of seminary curriculum contains 24 doctrinal mastery passages. A list of these passages can be found in the Doctrinal Mastery Core Document (2023). If school is in session when Scripture Course lessons containing a doctrinal mastery passage come up, those lessons should be taught. However, it is not necessary to teach Scripture Course lessons with doctrinal mastery passages when those lessons occur while students are not in school, such as during summer or winter break.

Step-by-Step Example of Creating a Pacing Guide

There are a variety of ways you could create a pacing guide using the principles listed above. For example, you could complete your pacing guide in this sequence:

Schedule Scripture Course lessons, including:
- Assess Your Learning lessons.
- Doctrinal Mastery Practice lessons.
- Scripture Course lessons that prepare students for either of the lessons listed above.
Schedule Life Preparation lessons.
Make adjustments as necessary.

Case study

Sister Mendoza is an early-morning seminary teacher. She and her coordinator, Brother Amasio, are creating a pacing guide for the Doctrine and Covenants course that will begin in January. The following is a description of how Sister Mendoza and Brother Amasio were able to use the three steps listed above to create their pacing guide.

Step 1: Schedule Scripture Course lessons

Sister Mendoza and Brother Amasio began creating their pacing guide by scheduling all of the scripture course lessons during the weeks when seminary would be in session. They made sure that they scheduled the lessons to align with the content being studied in Come, Follow Me.

They looked through the Scripture Course lessons and identified all of the Assess Your Learning and Doctrinal Mastery Practice lessons in each half of the course. They noticed that five Assess Your Learning lessons would occur when students would be in school: two in the first half of the school year and three in the second half.

Next, Sister Mendoza and Brother Amasio noticed that five Doctrinal Mastery Practice lessons will occur when seminary is in session: three in the first half of the school year and two in the second half.

Sister Mendoza and Brother Amasio then looked through each of the Assess Your Learning lessons they put in their pacing guide. They took note of which Scripture Course lessons each of the assessment activities focused on. They made a note (*) next to each of these lessons in the pacing guide so that Sister Mendoza could emphasize them appropriately and let students know which activities they would follow up on later.

Next, Sister Mendoza and Brother Amasio identified the 24 doctrinal mastery passages for the course. They found that 11 of doctrinal mastery passages are included in lessons that will be taught when seminary is in session for the first half of the school year and only 7 would be taught in the second half. They decided to bold the title of each of these lessons in their pacing guide so Sister Mendoza would know when to be sure to emphasize the doctrinal mastery passages as part of the lesson.

Step 2: Schedule Life Preparation Lessons

After scheduling all of the Scripture Course lessons, Sister Mendoza and Brother Amasio began scheduling Life Preparation lessons in their pacing guide.

Brother Amasio had previously provided direction to all the teachers he supervises about which Life Preparation lessons should be taught during each half of the course. He provided this guidance to ensure that there would be no duplication in the Life Preparation lessons students would be taught during each half of the course. He felt that this would be particularly important in case a different teacher was called to teach the second half of the course.

Brother Amasio’s instructions were listed as follows.

Life Preparation lessons he determined to include in the first half of the course:

Doctrinal Mastery: Finding Answers to My Questions (all five lessons)
Scripture Study Skills (all five lessons)
Succeeding in School (all four lessons)
Physical and Emotional Health (all seven lessons)
“Preparation for General Conference” (teach before April general conference)
“Studying Messages of the Lord’s Servants” (teach toward the beginning of the course)
Eight messages from Church leaders using “Template: Teachings of Church Leaders” (spread evenly throughout the first half of the course)

Life Preparation lessons he determined to include in the second half of the course:

Building Self-Reliance (all four lessons)
For the Strength of Youth: Making Choices (all six lessons)
Preparing for Future Education and Employment (all four lessons)
Missionary Preparation (all five lessons)
Temple Preparation (all four lessons)
“Preparation for General Conference” (teach before October general conference)

Sister Mendoza and Brother Amasio scheduled all of the Life Preparation lessons into their pacing guide. Some of the Life Preparation lessons were placed in specific weeks to align with sections in the Doctrine and Covenants studied in Come, Follow Me because of suggestions made in the “Overview” sections for the different lesson categories. They scheduled others based on when they felt that students would benefit most from the topics.

After scheduling the Life Preparation lessons into their pacing guide, they still had four classes in the first half of the course and four in the second half of the course that did not have a lesson scheduled. They determined that these classes would be lessons on talks from Church leaders from the most recent general conference. Sister Mendoza would use “Template: Teachings of Church Leaders” to teach these lessons.

Step 3: Make adjustments as necessary

Sister Mendoza and Brother Amasio looked over the pacing guide they created together to see if any adjustments might be necessary. They realized that they overlooked a week where seminary would not be in session due to a break students would have in their school schedule. During this week, students would also be studying a doctrinal mastery passage. Brother Amasio and Sister Mendoza both felt that this lesson should be scheduled either the week before or the week after. They decided to move it into the previous week. In order to do this, they would need to replace one of the other lessons scheduled. They decided to put it in place of one of the Teachings of Church Leaders lessons. This was the only adjustment they needed to make in their pacing guide.

Both Sister Mendoza and Brother Amasio felt good about the decisions they made. Sister Mendoza felt confident that her students would have a positive experience in seminary that would bring them closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. She was grateful that these decisions were made before she started teaching so that during the school year she can focus on preparing the lesson she will teach next. She felt a significant burden lifted to not have to determine which lessons to teach during the week in addition to preparing them.