A Guide to Using Colaborate Remotely

The Sparkhouse team developed the Colaborate confirmation curriculum to connect with middle schoolers in challenging and meaningful ways. Some parts were designed specifically for in-person experiences. But many activities in each Colaborate lesson can be used as-is or with slight adaptations to support a remote learning model. Whether you’re using Colaborate for Lutheran, Methodist, or Presbyterian confirmation, or you’ve chosen the Bible Study for your youth, follow these steps to adapt Colaborate to meet your remote learning needs. 

• First, make sure you have all the parts of the curriculum: a Leader Guide for you, access to the videos on DVD or with your Sparkhouse Digital Youth subscription, and a Student Handbook for each youth. If you’ve chosen Lutheran or Methodist confirmation, you’ll also want to give a Colaborate Bible to each youth.
• Second, preview the lessons in the scope and sequence to decide which ones you’ll cover. 
• Third, start looking at each lesson to decide what to keep as-is, what to adapt, and what to skip. Make sure you know how you’ll be showing the video during each lesson.  
• Fourth, decide what you want to include in the materials you’ll mail or deliver to each student: they’ll need their Student Handbook and a Bible. You may want to include other lesson supplies and a fun surprise or two.

Here’s a quick guide to reviewing each lesson for remote learning:

The Leader Prep pages help you prepare for the lesson content and the developmental needs of your students. You could also spend time thinking through what their specific needs may be given the status of their schooling, social lives, and family situations in the past week. Your check-in activity can tap into these needs. 

Framing the Problem provides you an icebreaker that may work with adaptations, but consider starting your time with a check-in instead. In this section, youth also read from scripture, look at the first page in their handbooks, and watch the video.

During the Using the Infographic time, you can invite kids to explore parts of the content that are most interesting and helpful to them. Guide them through some of the interactive ways they can go deeper with the text and images on these pages. You might also find that the Want More? options on the bottom of the page give some additional options that work well for remote learning.

Making Meaning provides two activities for youth to make deeper connections: one individual and one group project. Decide which one is the best fit for your students.