My first church teaching experience was the first and second grade Sunday School class. My only guaranteed, no-fail teaching tactic was to encourage my children to repeat our memory verse in a regular voice, a whispery voice, and then an earth-shattering scream.
Parents loved me. The teachers in the rooms on the opposite sides of mine…not so much.
Now, for those of you who don’t know, I’m a certified public school teacher. Between my schooling and working, I’ve been involved in education for ten years. In that time, I’ve had to write my own curriculum quite a few times.
Because of my background, one of my biggest issues with teaching Sunday School is the curriculum. It’s almost never leveled properly for the ages, never considers the needs/frustrations of teachers, etc. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like it’s most often the same lesson, the same format, just a new cover.
That’s where Disciplr first began to impress me.
What is Disciplr?
Disciplr is a digital curriculum that offers lower prices (digital is cheaper to print since you don’t actually print it) and strategic overview of its curriculum. And in case you missed that first thing, let me repeat: Disciplr is digital. It’s entirely online, with all resources linked to a central lesson overview. This is a huge convenience for a church that has classes taught by multiple teachers on alternating weeks because there shouldn’t be an issue over not having the lesson book or the resource book/cd. Granted, some of your “old school” teachers might want things printed for them, but going forward, I see that as less of an issue.
Of course, Disciplr does have printables for your class as well, but it’s set up is designed to allow multiple teachers to view the curriculum assigned to them by an overarching pastor/curriculum manager account. So using my log-in, I can see two different curricula that I have access to (both of which were/are FREE) and because of this set up, my teachers can let me know what they need printed ahead of time, and I can get that done for them while I’m in the church office. Thus, Disciplr helps to eliminate—or at least severely reduce—the amount of rushed Sunday morning photocopying.
What I Love
I sort of started going over this in the section above, but I just reemphasize that I love the simplicity of an all digital curriculum. Also, I truly love how this has been designed to simplify the teacher’s prep: resources are all grouped together at the top of the lesson, the overview is easy to navigate, and there’s even a shopping list function which will help your teacher/leader plan what supplies he/she needs to buy for the various activities involved in a given lesson. In of my curriculum’s the teacher’s spiritual development is also considered as a devotional for the teacher appears at the top of the lesson. This is a HUGE oversight for many in the area of Sunday School, especially in children’s ministry: the teacher cannot give to their students what they do no have.
Issues/Wishes I Have
Disciplr is new. It only went public last month, so there will be bugs and shortcomings. Overall, I’m really impressed by it. The only two issues that struck me was my inability to find the scope/sequence for the curricula in my library—though that may be a user error—and the inability to see more than one quarter of curriculum at a time—though that issue will probably get worked out soon.
I was going to go through some wishes that I had for Disciplr, but they’ve already talked about a lot of it on their FAQ section of their site: a presentation mode that would allow teachers to fully utilize some of the digital elements of Disciplr, a student/parent version, preferably a web app, that would help extend the learning outside of Sunday School, and the ability to customize lessons. So, these options aren’t there (boo), but Disciplr is aware of these gaps and is working to fill them (yeah!), even though they’ve just started. That’s a great sign: looking to improve even after you’ve just launched your product.
Conclusion—Don’t Take My Word For It!
Here’s the best part: my review isn’t your only source of information. You can get a FREE Disciplr account and try it out for yourself, and if you act fast, you can snag one or two free curricula. Head on over to Disciplr.com, create an account, and decide for yourself if Disciplr is something for you and your church.
What are you looking for in a “digital” curriculum?
[You can also listen to a recent podcast on digital curriculum.]
Bevin says
Loved this overview of Disciplr. I happened to stumble across their website a few weeks ago when I was on the search for a curriculum for our small church. I was surprised not many people have really blogged/talked about it. I love that it’s not just focused on megachurches and from what I’ve seen so far, each lesson doesn’t necessarily cost an arm and a leg. I LOVE the graphics and UI and I’m extremely excited to see what they bring in the future. I’d really love a dedicated app for the iPhone/Android, I don’t have a tablet myself and the website isn’t formatted to fit a smartphone screen. Other than that, it looks really promising and has a lot of potential! Also, the free curriculum (we’ve started Discipleship Jr.) is a score!
Phil Schneider says
Glad that you’ve found Disciplr useful! I agree—it’s already so awesome that I can’t wait to what they come out with next.