On September 6, 2011, Brigham Young University–Idaho president Kim B. Clark stood before his faculty and staff to detail his view of what learning and teaching should look like when it is done in the Lord’s way. In that setting, President Clark stated, “When I speak of learning today, I speak of it as an increase in the capacity or power to know, to do, and to become.”[1] This learning framework of know, do, and become, while not unique to President Clark,[2] appears to have played an important role in laying the groundwork for what he refers to as “deep learning.”

In a talk given in 2015 to employees of Seminaries and Institutes of Religion, Elder Clark, then serving as commissioner of the Church Educational System, charged educators in S&I to “educate the rising generation more deeply and more powerfully than [they] have ever done before.”[3] Deep learning, Elder Clark continued, “is an increase in the . . . power to know, to do, and to become. It definitely means increased knowledge, but it also means increased understanding of the heart. It means increased skill and capacity to act. It means increased strength of character, including integrity, courage, and kindness.”[4] Since 2015 Elder Clark has continued to build on and to flesh out what it means to learn and teach deeply in the Lord’s way.[5]

Since 2015, S&I educators have responded to Elder Clark’s charge and have wrestled with what deep learning looks like in the classroom. While attempts at progress have been made on this front, in April 2018, Elder Clark addressed S&I area directors and emphasized that gaps still remain in our efforts to teach students deeply. To address these gaps, Elder Clark invited S&I teachers and leaders to consider the following three questions as they relate to these gaps:

Gap #1: What do students need to experience to learn deeply?

Gap #2: How do we encourage better student preparation?

Gap #3: How do we help students increase their power and capacity to take effective, righteous action that leads them to develop Christlike attributes and become more like the Savior?[6]

The focus of this paper is an attempt to address gaps 1 and 2. To do this, we turn to academic research that focuses on learning in groups. Academics around the world have wrestled and written about what it means for a group to learn and what it is that teachers and students can do to increase the learning that takes place among learners. Dozens of academic research articles regarding group learning will be referenced in hopes of identifying what more S&I teachers and leaders can understand and do to address what students need to learn deeply and what teachers can do to encourage students to better prepare for learning in the classroom.

I begin this paper by giving more details regarding deep learning as described by Elder Clark and what it means. I then use the research done by academics regarding learning in groups to highlight what can be done to address gaps 1 and 2 noted above. In short, this study highlights two major findings in the field of academic research regarding learning in groups that can be applied to addressing efforts in S&I to address gaps 1 and 2 respectively.

1. To learn deeply, it is helpful for students to understand that learning is primarily a process-driven endeavor, rather than a product-driven one; in addition, students’ learning is often enhanced when they learn the skills necessary to engage in that process and continually reflect on the learning that comes out of that process.
2. To help students come prepared for learning, a teacher can do more to make explicit the process of learning, while also helping students acquire the skills necessary to engage in this process. Additionally, teachers can provide ill-structured problems and “group-worthy”[7] tasks that prepare the minds of students to come in ready to explain, share, and testify of how gospel doctrines and principles in the scriptures apply in real life.

What Is Deep Learning?

What is deep learning? In short, it “is learning of the whole soul—the mind, the heart, the body, and the immortal spirit.”[8] Deep learning increases a student’s capacity to know and understand, to take effective, righteous action, and to become more like our Heavenly Father.[9] For this type of learning to take place, both students and teachers must take an active role in the learning process.

Specifically, the Lord’s way for learning deeply requires that students do the following three things:

1. Study, seek, prepare, and obey
2. Gather to teach one another in charity and attended by the grace of Jesus Christ
3. Receive revelation, inspiration, and other spiritual gifts[10]

Meanwhile, a teacher who helps in this process of deep learning must

1. Have the Holy Ghost and
2. Love the students.[11]

Deep learning is fostered in an environment where both students and teachers work toward these respective commitments. As a result, deep learning increases a student’s capacity to know and understand, to take effective, righteous action, and to become more like Heavenly Father. The ultimate aim of learning in this way is for students to experience joy in the Lord.[12] While each of the above-mentioned elements is crucial for deep learning to happen, ultimately students will learn deeply “only insofar as the redeeming and strengthening powers of Christ work in their lives.”[13] For this reason, repentance “is central to deep learning.”[14]

Studying, seeking, preparing, and obeying are at the very heart of student preparation and, as teachers, we must do more to identify ways to help students consistently do these things before, during, and after class. Moreover, when we ask ourselves, “What experiences must students have to learn deeply?,” we aim to find more effective and efficient ways to more regularly help students teach one another and to help them receive revelation, inspiration, and other spiritual gifts.

While no one source will enable us to completely close these first two gaps, much has been done in academia as it relates to group learning that can help inform our efforts to address these gaps.

What Has Been Done in Academia in Relation to Learning in a Group?

Academics throughout the world have sought answers to questions pertaining to group learning as it relates to people and organizations. Some of these questions include “What does it mean for a group to learn?,” “What supports or thwarts learning in a group?,” and “What can a teacher or a leader do to help a group learn?” Seeking answers to these questions has led to some of the seminal research literature regarding cooperative learning, peer-to-peer teaching, conflict resolution, social facilitation, concepts related to psychological safety, and so forth.[15] While some of this work is specific to learning in small groups or working in a team, the lessons culled from this work can be broadened in scope to shed light on factors that influence learning in any size group, classroom, or organization.

With this in mind, I turn to some of these findings seeking to understand what they can teach S&I educators regarding what a student needs to experience in a group setting in order to learn deeply, as well as what a teacher can do to help students come better prepared for the learning experience. The following is my analysis based on this research as it pertains to these first two gaps. The analysis provided includes claims made by researchers in the fields of education, psychology, and organizational behavior, along with some empirical support and inspired commentary given by Church Educational System leaders. It should be noted from the outset that though this analysis is based largely on the work of those in a secular setting, this analysis is given in the spirit of “seek[ing] . . . out of the best books” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118) to help religious educators do more to strengthen and develop faith in the Savior in their students.

Gap 1: What Does a Student Need to Experience to Learn Deeply?

Elder Clark has taught that to learn deeply, one must learn with the whole soul; learning is deep when it “increases our power” to do three things:

1. To know and understand
2. To take effective, righteous action
3. To become more like our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ[16]

To learn in a way that increases not only one’s knowledge but also his or her ability to act and become requires more than just passive reception. To this end, a thorough study of research in the field of group learning yields that to learn deeply, it is helpful for students to understand that learning is primarily a process-driven endeavor, rather than a product-driven one; in addition, students’ learning is often enhanced as they learn the skills necessary to engage in that process and continually reflect on the learning that comes out of that process.

Focusing on Learning as a Process

Researchers have made it clear that “learning” can either signify an end product (that which is learned) or the process that yields the product.[17] In Seminaries and Institutes of Religion, educators may often see learning primarily as a product-driven endeavor: teachers study for and prepare a lesson, and then they give that lesson in hopes that students will learn and be edified. A student who views learning primarily as a product-driven endeavor might place most of the responsibility of learning on the teacher and might place themselves as a passive recipient intent on gleaning information from a teacher who is seen to be the expert. In the author’s personal experience teaching, it is not unusual, for example, to hear students reinforce this product-driven view of learning when they offer prayers in class that take the form of “help us to listen to the lesson and learn what [the teacher] has prepared for us.”

While much of our focus in Seminaries and Institutes of Religion may be on improving the product (the “what” of our lesson or the manner in which we present it) that we provide students, it is often in the process of learning that students are changed. When learners and teachers begin to focus on learning as a process rather than just a product, they may spend more time learning how to listen to and respect others, understand different opinions, challenge others’ assumptions, ask questions, and negotiate points of view.[18] Chris Argyris and Donald Schön, former academics in the field of organizational behavior and processes, argue that if the goal of a learning setting is merely to learn facts and gain instrumental knowledge, then focusing on product may be appropriate. However, if students desire to gain transformative knowledge, where assumptions and ideas are changed and transformed, then more focus needs to be on process.[19] Dr. Patricia Cranton, an educational researcher at Columbia University, points out that when learners in a group setting desire to move past just learning facts to actually constructing knowledge through the exchange of “ideas, feelings, experiences, information, and insights,” the emphasis “is, in large part, on the process—listening to and respecting others, understanding alternative perspectives, challenging and questioning others, [etc.].”[20] Furthermore, when students and teachers experience learning in an environment where norms have been established that emphasize psychological safety, one researcher found that those groups of students exhibit “[greater] team learning behavior and consequently scored better on measure of team performance outcomes.”[21] Thus, focusing on the process of learning might also improve the learning product as well.

When the learning process is the focus, students are charged with taking ownership of their own learning as the teacher establishes a climate where such collaboration is possible. In such an environment, the teacher gives up their “position power” and becomes an equal partner in the learning environment.[22] As students experience learning in this type of environment, they move from merely learning facts and principles and move toward constructing new insights and knowledge. For this transformative learning to occur, it helps when students see each other as an integral part of the team[23] where everyone plays a key role to the learning of the collective group rather than just as a group of “co-actors.”[24] Each student brings their individual characteristics and strengths to bless the entire class.[25]

William Kahn, professor of organizational behavior at Boston University, has noted that working effectively as a group of learners in a way that leads to positive outcomes and deeper learning is an “acquired skill” that needs to be practiced.[26] Deep group learning is most likely to happen, according to Kahn, when the group of learners experiences a learning environment where learners have adopted the following “effective team processes”:

• The group of learners has identified what their end goal is as a group of learners, what they hope to gain from the experience, and how they will work together to accomplish those goals.
• Information that is shared among learners is accurate, honest, open, and evenly distributed.
• The group of learners has norms that encourage individuality among group members as well as adhering to group standards.
• The group of learners encourages each other to be vulnerable and to share risky ideas and feelings.
• The group of learners has a supportive, friendly, warm emotional climate.
• Each member of the group of learners perceives other learners as competent and able to contribute in different ways to the group’s overall goal to learn.[27]

A group of researchers at Project Zero, located at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, posits that one truly learns only insofar as they “[encounter] new perspectives, strategies, and ways of thinking.” On this point, some researchers have argued that to learn deeply and in ways that enable students to change behavior requires that students rid themselves of certain misconceptions that they have regarding a given topic.[28] To do so requires students to (1) be able to openly express their misconceptions and (2) be presented with information or an experience that exposes the fallacies held in their misconceptions. The tension that is fostered when students’ current misconceptions are exposed—by encountering new information that proves the fallacy or holes in their current conceptions—provides the ideal circumstances for students to then (3) wrestle with new information and insights that ultimately help them to (4) come to a correct understanding of a given topic, or for our purposes, a doctrine or principle of the gospel.[29] Or as a couple of researchers observed, “It is only through negative feedback that knowledge develops, for it tells the system that what it is doing is not working and that it must stop, reflect, contemplate other alternatives . . . and discover anew what works.”[30]

The environment necessary for students to engage in these four crucial steps for conceptual change is possible when the process of learning is emphasized, so that students are able to dominate the conversation, challenge each other’s assumptions, ask for clarification, provide evidence to the contrary, and so forth. In the Church, we may have become too accustomed with agreeing with each other in a gospel setting, if only tacitly. The author has noted anecdotally that we as members often refuse to challenge the thoughts or ideas expressed by others even when we may hold a different view, in fear that doing so will instigate contention or hard feelings. In this way, we may fall prey to what one group of researchers refer to as a “pseudocommunity.” In a pseduocommunity setting, learners “behave as if we all agree,” as each learner “regulate[s] face-to-face interactions with the tacit understanding that it is against the rules to challenge others or press too hard for clarification. This understanding paves the way for the illusion of consensus.”[31]

Yet students learn deeply as they face differing opinions and must either shift their own paradigm or solidify their own understanding as they are pressed to put into words their current assumptions. As one researcher has written, “You argue, you protest, you teach, you differ, and then, finally, you agree, and in reaching that agreement, you find that you learned some things that you would not otherwise have learned.”[32] Students learn deeply, then, when they experience learning in an environment where students “accept their groupness and the group accepts the importance of its members’ individuality.”[33] This is not to suggest that a teacher or student should promote a contentious environment; rather, as teachers and students agree that disagreements are necessary for learning, the stage will be set for students and teachers to share alternative opinions and feelings that lead to deeper, more meaningful learning.[34] And, in a religious setting where such give-and-take is based in scripture and on the Spirit, such learning should lead to greater faith in the Savior and his restored gospel.

Members of learning groups also learn with one another by modifying, extending, clarifying, and enriching their own ideas and the ideas of others. In such groups, learning is purposeful, social, emotional, empowering, and representational.[35] In the author’s experience, too often in a seminary or institute classroom, students’ comments are expressed independent of anything else any other student has shared. As some have observed, discussions turn into “many heads around the table talking in different directions instead of thinking together.”[36] One group of researchers referenced this as “the poker model of discourse,” where a learner throws out an idea or thought, “much like poker chips, into the center, where they lie inert, untouched by discussion.”[37] In contrast, learning is deepened as students pick up those “chips” and analyze them, discuss them, and build on them before the discussion moves on.[38] This type of concept of what a classroom should look like seems to reflect Elder Clark’s vision of students “diligently studying, seeking, preparing, and obeying” and then coming to class “[gathered] to teach one another, in the bonds of charity.”[39]

Learners, then, must not see class time as simply time when they “listen to a lesson” but rather as an experience where they are actively engaged in learning how to learn and using how to learn to foster understanding that will lead them to act and become. Elder Clark spoke to the importance of learners understanding that learning is a process when he said the following:

Intentionally teach [students] the process [for spiritual learning]. Applying hearts to understanding is a spiritual process; understanding of the heart is a spiritual gift. Please teach the students how the process works. Help them feel their responsibility to use their agency to choose the Lord and live the principles. Teach them to reflect on what they experience and share what they learn and bear witness of the truth. The grace of Jesus Christ will attend them as they teach one another.[40]

When the process of learning is emphasized, teachers and students can begin to see their “class” as a living entity that has the capacity to increase its ability to help each learner within it learn more deeply as a result of the efforts of the collective group; this is in stark contrast to the more typical view of the classroom as simply a stationary group that comes to be taught a lesson each day.

Once students have come to emphasize the process of learning, their learning can be deepened as they regularly reflect on “their” process.[41] As one researcher notes, “[Learners] need to truly engage in discussions about how [their class is] working. . . . You must . . . join with your [classmates] to learn from your experiences as a [group]. You must review successes and failures, assess them systematically, and record the lessons.”[42] As such, a seminary or institute class can benefit from occasionally evaluating together how well they are living up to the norms that they have set for themselves as well as their overall process for learning. During such evaluations, students should be open and honest about what is working with their process and what is not, what is helping them learn and what is not. Classes who are good at reflecting on their learning process are more likely to reproduce successful learning experiences in the future.[43]

Gap 2: What Can Teachers Do to Help Students Come Better Prepared for Learning?

If you were to ask an S&I teacher what they can do to help students come to class prepared to learn, some might reference the need to encourage and hold students accountable for doing the reading of a block of scriptures the night before. Certainly, reading the block before class can prepare a student’s mind and heart to learn and to engage in the learning process in a meaningful way. Yet, when a teacher understands what a student needs to experience deep learning (as mentioned above), a teacher might spend more time in the learning experience having students reflect on and engage in the process of learning and on developing the skills necessary to engage in that process. Teachers might begin to see each class period in terms of an overarching scaffolding effort to build lifelong learners, rather than just as independent periods of time where a “lesson” is given by the teacher.[44] In this way, so much of the conversation here regarding how to address gap 2 is directly connected to the conversation regarding addressing gap 1 mentioned previously; indeed, knowing what needs to happen to address gap 1 will motivate what teachers do to address gap 2. In short, to help students come prepared for learning, a teacher can do more to help students acquire the skills necessary to engage in the process of learning while also providing ill-structured problems and group-worthy tasks that prepare the minds of students to come in ready to explain, share, and testify of how gospel doctrines and principles in the scriptures apply in real life.

Helping Learners Acquire Skills

As has been noted above, the likelihood for deep learning to exist can be enhanced as learners focus on learning as a process and engage in that process. To be successful in this endeavor, researchers have found that it helps when learners acquire skills that will deepen their learning in and out of the classroom.[45] In this way, as learners acquire certain skills, their ability to engage in the process of learning that enables deep learning increases. Hence, the acquisition of skills and focusing on learning as a process are closely intertwined, as mentioned in the introduction of this section. The acquisition of some of these skills will also help students to deepen their understanding outside of the classroom, as will be seen below.

A group of researchers from Project Zero at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education posit that helping students come to class prepared to learn is something that is scaffolded by a teacher throughout a semester through the skills a teacher builds in students as well as the practices and procedures that a teacher puts in place to help students be successful learners.[46] For example, because the primary form of student talk in schools around the country are rote, recitation, instruction, and exposition, at the start of a given school semester, a teacher can work with students to develop “a vocabulary for collaboration; using tools such as protocols, thinking routines, rubrics, and norms; and focusing on building collective as well as individual knowledge.”[47] Classroom norms for discussion that may need to be decided on include the expectations regarding participation and the asking of questions, what the protocol will be when a student has a different view of something discussed, how students will reflect on what they are learning from the comments made in class, what students will do to monitor things that may distract the group’s ability to learn, and so forth. By setting up such norms, teachers have “set the stage for explanation giving [by students] by emphasizing understanding and sharing ideas, rather than focusing on [giving a ‘correct’ answer].”[48]

In addition to establishing classroom norms, protocols, and thinking routines, a teacher can teach specific discussion skills and moves that can enrich discussions in ways that deepen overall learning; such moves include how to extend a discussion, ask for help, question another student in ways that deepens learning, as well as modify what another student says.[49] Sometimes class discussions take the following form: teacher asks question, one student responds, teacher acknowledges response and then asks another question, another student responds, teacher acknowledges response and asks another question or moves on to something else, and so on. As this pattern is repeated, students may become trained to believe that class discussion is nothing more than a cluster of one-on-one interactions between a teacher and individual students. Imagine, on the other hand, what could happen in a class where the teacher and students have established classroom norms that invite students to openly challenge one another’s ideas in kind, tactful ways, come to class prepared to ask questions about the readings, and consistently reflect on what they are learning from the Holy Ghost through the comments made by their peers.

Researchers Douglas Barnes and Frankie Todd highlight how when teachers teach specific discussion skills to their students, students’ ability to carry on discussions that deepen learning is greatly enhanced, leading to class discussions being initiated and carried primarily by students feeding off each other’s comments. Three specific discussion skills or moves mentioned by Barnes and Todd that seem especially relevant for S&I teachers’ work in the classroom are eliciting, extending, and qualifying.[50] Eliciting is when a student requests someone to continue what they are saying, or to expand on a previous remark, or provide further support for a claim made. Extending has reference to when students “work together in taking up one another’s ideas in order to extend them further, or to transmute them.”[51]

Related to the discussion skill of extending is qualifying. Qualifying happens when a student adds to or extends what someone else has stated in a way that “inevitably” changes it or at least qualifies its “range of application.”[52] Just as teachers need to learn how to teach, students need to be trained on what makes for a good discussion. The reality is that some students’ only idea of what a classroom looks like comes from a more lecture-style classroom found in the public or charter-school systems. If teachers want to help students move past being passive recipients to coming to class really prepared for meaningful learning, teachers could help students develop discussion moves that make for enriching classroom discussions.

To help in creating such skills for discussion, Krechevsky et al. found that providing students with the opportunity to watch a video where students are engaging in the type of discussion that a teacher hopes for can be helpful.[53] Teachers can then work with their students to model and practice similar processes for effective discussions. A teacher can then provide opportunities throughout a given semester for students to reflect not only on what they have learned in class, but also to evaluate their process as learners, including their efforts to live up to their agreed upon established norms, protocols, thinking routines, and the like.[54] This meta-approach to learning helps learners move from merely seeking learning to actually identifying and focusing on the practices that will enable life-long learning.

One of the key discussion “moves” that teachers can help students to develop is students’ ability to ask questions that lead to revelation. We know that the asking and answering of questions is “at the heart of all learning;”[55] yet, it is tempting as a teacher to believe that asking effective questions falls primarily under a teacher’s role in the classroom, whereas students are tasked with thinking about and answering questions. In reality, even a poorly worded question asked in sincerity by a student can foster deeper, more meaningful learning than the most well-crafted question by a teacher.

Researchers have found that when teachers and students create classroom protocols, norms, and thinking routines that encourage students to ask questions throughout the learning experience, learning is deepened, students see the classroom as a more predictable and safer environment to “open up work and ideas to inquiry,” and classroom discussions are more productive.[56] With this in mind, a wise teacher might help students understand the difference between a search question, an analyze question, a feel the truth and importance question, and an application question. In such a discussion, a teacher could illustrate how different questions lead to different outcomes. Then, a teacher could continually provide opportunities in class for students to ask questions and to reflect on the questions that they ask.

Because some students may have been trained to think that learning only happens when a teacher gives them an answer to something, it can be helpful to occasionally invite students to write down or document in some way things that they have learned or felt because of the discussion and insights shared by the various members of the class.[57] When this environment is fostered, then teachers can do as Larry Johannessen, former professor at Northern Illinois University, suggests and begin to find opportunities in class to create tension (not controversy or contention[58]) and cause students to wrestle with ideas regarding principles and doctrine that have “no quick or easy solutions but are open to a variety of solutions and or/interpretations.”[59] Without such tension, “[students] will agree too much and too easily, at least on the surface, and the best ideas and practices [will] remain undiscovered.”[60] To be clear, this is not to suggest that a teacher should provide a free-for-all environment where students are free to argue against established truths of the Restoration. Rather, a teacher will do more to help students to discuss and struggle with understanding and the application of a principle or doctrine. In doing so, the goal should always be the same: to continue to deepen students’ faith in the Savior Jesus Christ and his restored gospel.

For example, imagine the power and deeper understanding that can happen for a student when they can openly say that they are not sure that they have ever received an answer to a prayer by having a “burning in the bosom” (see Doctrine and Covenants 9:8). Such an admission in a classroom where the process of effective discussions has been established and skills for such discussions have been developed could lead other students to ask for the student to provide further clarification, challenge certain assumptions, and/or share insights about how they have found their prayers to be answered in alternative ways. The depth of learning inherent in this type of discussion is summarized well by one academic: “If we all think alike, we have little chance to discover what we already do not know. It is when we push up against one another that we take into account new insights, directions, and ideas.”[61]

Amid such a discussion where students are pushing up against each other’s ideas, a teacher or a student could direct the classes attention to passages from scripture or words of living prophets that provide greater insight on the myriad of ways that prayers can and are answered. Because a teacher was willing to pose questions and situations that allowed for some tension, students can walk away from such a discussion with a deeper understanding of what it means to communicate with God and what they can do to recognize that communication.

Ill-Structured Questions, “Group-Worthy” Tasks, and Case Studies

For students to continually focus on the process of learning by engaging certain skills for learning, researchers have suggested that teachers need to continually provide tasks or learning experiences that require the insights and input of each student.[62] These “ill-structured” problems require students to lean on each other and press on one another’s’ ideas.[63] Rachel Lotan, of Stanford University, posits that when presenting ill-structured questions, teachers should ask themselves, “Is this scenario that I am giving ‘group-worthy?’ Group-worthy tasks “are as close as possible to genuine dilemmas and authentic problems. They require students to share their experiences and justify their beliefs and opinions.”[64] For a scenario to be “group-worthy,” it must be one whose outcomes is benefitted by having the input of multiple insights. Such tasks “are open-ended, have multiple entry points, and benefit from different perspectives to reach solutions. They foster a sense of purpose in the group. . . . [Such learning leads to learners becoming] part of something bigger than themselves.”[65]

Some of the strengths of using group-worthy tasks is that they lead students to analyze, synthesize . . . build consensus, and draw conclusions,” while at the same time causing teachers to “delegate intellectual authority to their students and make their students’ life experiences, opinions, and points of view legitimate components of the content to be learned.”[66] Ultimately, learning is enhanced when the learning environment becomes interdependent as each individual student’s learning experience depends on the efforts and input of every other student.

One form of providing ill-structured questions that are group-worthy is through use of case studies. Unlike lectures or materials found in certain textbooks, cases include information but provide no analysis.[67] Cases present students with “complex, unstructured problems that may include extraneous or irrelevant information and often don’t include every piece of information an analyst would like to have.”[68] Furthermore, they often do not have a single right answer (ill-structured problems); they “provide a rich contextual way to introduce new material[69] and create opportunities for students to apply the material they have just learned.”[70]

While using strictly case studies may seem outside what S&I has traditionally done, perhaps teachers and students could benefit by utilizing such an approach at least to some degree. Elder Clark has reiterated that Doctrinal Mastery is the “gateway to deep learning.”[71] At the heart of Doctrinal Mastery is helping students learn and master doctrine to the point that they can then utilize that doctrine to apply it to real-life situations (similar to a case study). It is when we put doctrine in practice and analyze its application that deeper learning is made possible.

Using ill-structured problems prepares the minds and hearts of students to learn long before they get into class. Consider these findings about ill structured questions and group-worthy tasks in context of what the Gospel Teaching and Learning: A Handbook for Teachers and Leaders in Seminaries and Institutes of Religion states about relevant readiness. The handbook reads, “When students see the relevance of what they are studying in the scripture block to their own situations and circumstances, they are generally more motivated to learn and apply gospel teachings. . . . With this in mind, teachers will often begin the lesson with a relevant question, situation, or Notes problem that will lead the students to search the scriptures for gospel principles and doctrines that give them guidance and direction.”[72] According to the handbook, there are two main purposes for starting a class with a “readiness” activity: (1) to capture student’s attention, and (2) to lead students to search the scriptures with greater purpose.[73] The handbook goes on to say that if students seem bored, it is usually because of three reasons: (1) they are not involved, (2) they do not understand what is being taught, or (3) they do not see the relevance of what is being taught.[74] The use of real-life case studies that include ill-structured questions prod students to be thinking of the learning experience prior to coming to class, priming them for a deeper experience while in class. As such, each lesson begins with instant relevant readiness that does not feel contrived and enables a students and teachers to jump right into the scriptures searching for doctrines and principles that help address problems introduced by the case study.

Furthermore, such case studies and ill-structured problems provide relevance throughout a given learning experience as new insights are shared and analyzed in context of the actual case study first presented. In such an environment, a wise teacher will invite students to ask questions as they pertain to the doctrine being taught in relation to the case being discussed. Because the case study will have provided a “real-life” situation, students’ questions will be authentic and connected to their own experiences. Learning in this way requires students to analyze the actual doctrine being taught and see how the doctrine applies in real life. In turn, when students face their own issues and challenges in life, they will have already made connections between doctrine and real-life applications in class that they can then transfer to their own situations. In this way, using ill-structured questions, group-worthy tasks, and case studies appears to address two of the invitations made by Elder Clark in his talk given in February 2019 during An Evening with a General Authority. In that setting, he offered the following two suggestions for helping students apply their hearts to understanding.

1. There is great power in connecting the principle to [students’] own experience and to what they already know and understand. Personal experience really is the gateway to their hearts.
2. It is critically important to use both questions we ask and questions the students ask. Questions unlock their minds and their hearts.[75]

Conclusion and Possible Recommendations

This project is not to be taken as a final conclusion on deep learning. Rather, all that has been written above has been my attempt to wrestle with how the research regarding learning in groups can help S&I educators in our efforts to address gaps 1 and 2. This study does have limitations. It should be acknowledged that no matter how well a teacher trains on the process of learning or helps students develop discussion strategies, there will still be students who remain disinterested and disengaged. Furthermore, there is no one-size-fits-all approach for creating rich learning experiences. Rather, this paper highlights two major findings from the field of group learning to answer questions regarding what a student needs to experience to learn deeply and how educators can help students come better prepared for the learning experience.

1. To learn deeply, it is helpful when students come to understand that learning is primarily a process-driven endeavor, rather than a product-driven one; in addition, students’ learning can be enhanced as they learn the skills necessary to engage in that process and continually reflect on the learning that comes out of that process.
2. To help students come prepared for learning, a teacher can do more to make explicit the process of learning, while also helping students acquire the skills necessary to engage in this process. Additionally, teachers can provide ill-structured problems and group-worthy tasks that prepare the minds of students to come in ready to explain, share, and testify of how gospel doctrines and principles in the scriptures apply in real life.

With these findings as context and in conclusion, the following is a list of possible recommendations based on what has been presented as part of this project.

• In a seminary or institute class, teachers and students can approach learning as a process-driven endeavor, not simply a product-driven one. To this end, teachers and students will establish norms, thinking routines, and protocols that set the stage for learning as a process.
• Teachers and students can begin to see their class as a living entity that has the capacity to increase its ability to help each learner within it learn more deeply as a result of the efforts of the collective group.
• Teachers and students can actively develop, and practice moves that make for strong discussions and that provide the learning environment necessary for conceptual change, such as eliciting, extending, modifying, pressing on each other’s ideas, asking for clarification, etc. Additionally, teachers and students can foster an environment where disagreement is not only okay, but an important part of preparing for deeper learning.
• Teachers can actively teach students how to ask effective questions that lead to deeper learning and will consistently press students to ask such questions of the teacher and of each other.
• To help students see what the learning process should look like, teachers might invite students to watch a video of a group of learners who are discussing in the way that the teacher and students desire. Teachers can then work with their students to model and practice similar processes for effective discussions.
• Teachers and students might take time throughout a semester or school year to reflect on their process of learning including how well they are adhering to their agreed-on class norms, as well as reflecting on what is helping them learn, what is not helping them learn, and how they can improve.
• Teachers can use ill-structured problems and group-worthy tasks to help prepare the minds and hearts of students long before they enter the classroom. Additionally, these group-worthy tasks, such as case studies, will provide a rich context for learners to analyze how doctrine applies to real life and will help students make connections that will lead them to adopt such applications in their own life.
• Because of the importance of ill-structured problems and group-worthy tasks to student preparation, teachers can work together throughout the school year and during school breaks, crafting problems and tasks that will most help students come prepared for the learning experience.
• Teachers and students can see Doctrinal Mastery as an integral part of addressing what students need to experience to learn deeply and how to help students come better prepared for the learning experience.
• To teach skills that help students be lifelong learners, teachers and students might use Doctrinal Mastery to develop the skills of identifying worldly assumptions, evaluating the validity of a source, and identifying where and why ambiguity exists in life and learn why living with such ambiguity is not only okay, but a key part of mortality.

This study and each of the above-mentioned recommendations have one purpose: to help the young people of the Church learn deeply in the Lord’s way to help students come to know and love God and become true disciples of the Savior.

Notes

[1] Kim B. Clark, “Learning and Teaching: To Know, to Do, and to Become” (address at BYU–Idaho faculty meeting, September 6, 2011), http://www2.byui.edu/Presentations/Transcripts/MiscellaneousAddresses/2011_09_06_Clark.htm.

[2] See Dallin H. Oaks, “The Challenge to Become,” Ensign, November 2000, 7–9. For a detailed analysis of this pattern, see David A. Bednar’s three-volume series, Increase in Learning (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), Act in Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012), and Power to Become (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2014).

[3] Kim B. Clark, “Encircled about with Fire” (Seminaries and Institutes of Religion satellite broadcast, August 4, 2015).

[4] Clark, “Encircled about with Fire.”

[5] See Kim B. Clark, “Teachers Come from God” (An Evening with a General Authority, 2016); Kim B. Clark, “Doctrinal Mastery and Deep Learning” (An Evening with a General Authority, 2017); Kim B. Clark, “Deep Learning and Joy in the Lord” (Seminaries and Institutes of Religion annual training broadcast, June 2017).

[6] Kim B. Clark, address at Area Director Convention, Seminaries and Institutes of Religion, April 2018.

[7] Rachel A. Lotan, “Group-Worthy Tasks,” Educational Leadership 60 (2003): 72–75.

[8] Clark, “Deep Learning and Joy in the Lord.”

[9] Clark, “Deep Learning and Joy in the Lord.”

[10] Clark, “Deep Learning and Joy in the Lord.”

[11] Clark, “Deep Learning and Joy in the Lord.”

[12] Clark, “Deep Learning and joy in the Lord.”

[13] Clark, “Encircled about with Fire.”

[14] Clark, “Deep Learning and Joy in the Lord.”

[15] See, for example, Chris Argyris and Donald A. Schön, “What Is an Organization That It May Learn?,” in Organizational Learning II: Theory, Method, and Practice (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996), 3–29). Elizabeth G. Cohen, “Restructuring the Classroom: Conditions for Productive Small Groups,” Review of Educational Research 64, no. 1 (1994): 1–35. Patricia Cranton, “Types of Group Learning,” Learning in Groups: Exploring Fundamental Principles, New Uses, and Emerging Opportunities 71 (1996): 25–32. Richard DuFour, “Building a Professional Learning Community: For System Leaders, It Means Allowing Autonomy within Defined Parameters,” School Administrator, 60, no. 5. (2003): 13–18. William A. Kahn, “Useful Conflict,” in The Student’s Guide to Successful Project Teams (New York: Psychology Press, 2009), 137–66. Lotan, “Group-Worthy Tasks,” 72–75. Victoria J. Marsick and Karen E. Watkins, “Informal and Incidental Learning,” New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education 89 (Spring 2001): 25–34. Robert E. Slavin, “An Introduction to Cooperative Learning,” in Cooperative Learning (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995), 1–13.

[16] Clark, “Doctrinal Mastery and Deep Learning.”

[17] See, for example, Argyris and Schön, “What Is an Organization That It May Learn?”; Cohen, “Restructuring the Classroom: Conditions for Productive Small Groups”; Cranton, “Types of Group Learning;”; William A. Kahn, “Dimensions of the Student Project Team,” in The Student’s Guide to Successful Project Teams (New York: Psychology Press, 2009), 1–21. Mara Krechevsky et al., “Unpacking the Practice of Group Learning,” in Visible Learners: Promoting Reggio-Inspired Approaches in All Schools (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013), 61–73.

[18] Cranton, “Types of Group Learning.” DuFour, “Building a Professional Learning Community.” Kahn, “Useful Conflict.”

[19] Argyris and Schön, “What Is an Organization That It May Learn?”

[20] Cranton, “Types of Group Learning.”

[21] Brian A. Sandoval and Fiona Lee, “When Is Seeking Help Appropriate? How Norms Affect Help Seeking in Organizations,” in Help Seeking in Academic Settings: Goals, Groups, and Contexts, ed. Stuart A. Karabenick and Richard S. Newman (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006), 154.

[22] Cranton, “Types of Group Learning,” 31.

[23] While this project focuses on learning that takes pace in a whole-class environment, teachers may occasionally use small-group work in their efforts to help students experience what students need in order to learn deeply. When this is the case, the work of Noreen M. Webb, former professor at UCLA, and Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar of the University of Michigan is helpful in deciding what items need to be considered when organizing such groups. Noreen M. Webb and Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar, “Group Processes in the Classroom,” in Handbook of Educational Psychology, 3rd ed., ed. David C. Berliner and Robert C. Calfee (New York: Macmillan, 1996), 841–73.

[24] J. Richard Hackman, “A Real Team,” in Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances (Boston: Harvard Business School Press: 2002), 46.

[25] Anne Donnellon, “A Different Perspective on Teams” and “Team Talk,” in Team Talk: The Power of Language in Team Dynamics (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996), 3–45.

[26] Kahn, “Dimensions of the Student Project Team,” 13.

[27] Kahn, “Dimensions of the Student Project Team,” 12–14.

[28] See, for example, Kenneth A. Strike and George J. Posner, “A Conceptual Change View of Learning and Understanding,” in Cognitive Structure and Conceptual Change, ed. Leo H. T. West and A. Leon Pines (New York: Academic Press, 1985), 211–31; Andrea A. diSessa, “A History of Conceptual Change Research: Threads and Fault Lines,” in The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, ed. R. Keith Sawyer (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 265–82.

[29] Strike and Posner, “A Conceptual Change View of Learning and Understanding.”

[30] Kenwyn K. Smith and David N. Berg, “A Paradoxical Conception of Group Dynamics,” Human Relations, 40, no. 10 (1987): 642.

[31] Pamela Grossman, Samuel Wineburg, and Stephen Woolworth, “Toward a Theory of Teacher Community,” Teachers College Record 103, no. 6 (2001): 20. Pseudocommunities fall prey to “groupthink” as described in Irving L. Janis, Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982).

[32] Kahn, “Useful conflict,” 144.

[33] Smith and Berg, “A Paradoxical Conception of Group Dynamics,” 643.

[34] In their attempt to follow Elder Clark’s charge to help students come prepared to teach one another in the bonds of charity, teachers often simply have a student prepare something and then stand in front of the class and teach it. While this may help the student who is sharing, it is rare that such a model creates deep learning for all. In fact, many teachers themselves acknowledge that a lecture style of teaching even by someone as knowledgeable and gifted as themselves is not a preferable method for teaching if deep learning is the goal. As such, when teachers just “turn it over to the students” and have them stand in front of the class to teach, in essence teachers have just replaced themselves with a less able teacher with the limited likelihood that the methods used by the student will engender the hoped-for deep learning. In contrast, students are able to teach one another in the bonds of charity as a teacher creates a community where students’ comments build on each other and where students continually reflect on what they have learned from other students.

[35] Krechevsky et al., “Unpacking the Practice of Group Learning.”

[36] David N. Perkins, “Collaboration, Not Coblaboration,” in King Arthur's Round Table: How Collaborative Conversations Create Smart Organizations (New York: Wiley, 2003), 150.

[37] Grossman, Wineburg, and Woolworth, “Toward a Theory of Teacher Community,” 58.

[38] Grossman, Wineburg, and Woolworth, “Toward a Theory of Teacher Community,” 58.

[39] Clark, “Deep Learning and Joy in the Lord.”

[40] Clark, “‘Apply Your Hearts to Understanding’” (An Evening with a General Authority, February 2019).

[41] Smith and Berg, “A Paradoxical Conception of Group Dynamics,” 642.

[42] Kahn, “Dimensions of the Student Project Team,” 14–15.

[43] Kahn, “Dimensions of the Student Project Team.”

[44] The work of J. Richard Hackman, professor of organizational psychology at Harvard University, in regard to the work that leaders can do to help teams run effectively seems instructive here. Hackman notes, “Leaders often are most helpful to teams . . . when they back off a bit from direct interventions intended to keep a team on a good course minute by minute and focus instead on creating and maintaining performance-enhancing organizational conditions.” J. Richard Hackman, “Imperatives for Leaders,” in Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002), 212. In context of a classroom, Hackman’s advice seems to imply teachers help students most by getting out of their way, worrying less about creating the “perfect” lesson, and spending more time fostering the type of environment that encourages learning.

[45] See, for example, Cohen, “Restructuring the Classroom.”

[46] Krechevsky et al., “Unpacking the Practice of Group Learning.”

[47] Krechevsky et al., “Unpacking the Practice of Group Learning,” 67.

[48] Noreen M. Webb et al., “Help Seeking in Cooperative Learning Groups,” in Help Seeking in Academic Settings: Goals, Groups, and Contexts, ed. Stuart A. Karabenick and Richard S. Newman (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2006), 48.

[49] Douglas Barnes and Frankie Todd, “Collaboration in the Groups,” in Communication and Learning Revisited: Making Meaning through Talk (Portsmouth, NH: Heineman, 1995), 21–54.

[50] Barnes and Todd, “Collaboration in the Groups.”

[51] Barnes and Todd, “Collaboration in the Groups.”

[52] Barnes and Todd, “Collaboration in the Groups,” 53.

[53] Krechevsky et al., “Unpacking the Practice of Group Learning,” 64

[54] Krechevsky et al., “Unpacking the Practice of Group Learning.”

[55] Henry B. Eyring, “The Lord Will Multiply the Harvest” (An Evening with Elder Henry B. Eyring, February 6, 1998).

[56] Krechevsky et al., “Unpacking the Practice of Group Learning,” 67.

[57] Krechevsky et al., “Unpacking the Practice of Group Learning.”

[58] As is shown in this article, disagreement in a group can be not only healthy, but also essential for deep learning. On the other hand, when certain members of a group seek controversy, it can be destructive. For a full conversation on this, see Will Felps, Terence R. Mitchell, and Eliza Byington, “How, When, and Why Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: Negative Group Members and Dysfunctional Groups,” Research in Organizational Behavior 27 (2006): 175–222.

[59] Larry R. Johannessen, “Strategies for Initiating Authentic Discussion,” English Journal 93, no. 1 (2003): 77.

[60] Kahn, “Useful Conflict,” 137.

[61] Kahn, “Useful Conflict,” 139.

[62] See, for example, Cohen, “Restructuring the Classroom”; Donnellon, “A Different Perspective on Teams” and “Team Talk”; Hackman, “A Real Team”; Johannessen, “Strategies for Initiating Authentic Discussion”; Krechevsky et al., “Unpacking the Practice of Group Learning.”

[63] Cohen, “Restructuring the Classroom.”

[64] Lotan, “Group-Worthy Tasks,” 72.

[65] Krechevsky et al., “Unpacking the Practice of Group Learning,” 65.

[66] Lotan, “Group-Worthy Tasks,” 72.

[67] “What Is Teaching with the Case Method?,” Pedagogy in Action: The SERC Portal for Educators (March 2018), https://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/cases/what.html.

[68] “What Is Teaching with the Case Method?”

[69] There is power in story. Learners often remember stories and the principles the stories illustrate, even when they do not remember the other details of a given lesson. Often religious educators’ use of story is limited to helping students understand and feel the truth and importance of a principle; utilizing case studies, on the other hand, provides another way to use story, one that helps students interact with doctrine through real-life examples in a way that helps students to retain what is learned. Using story can be powerful in connecting doctrine to real life.

[70] “What Is Teaching with the Case Method?”

[71] Clark, “Doctrinal Mastery and Deep Learning.”

[72] Gospel Teaching and Learning: A Handbook for Teachers and Leaders in Seminaries and Institutes of Religion (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2012), 56–57.

[73] Gospel Teaching and Learning, 50.

[74] Gospel Teaching and Learning, 17.

[75] Clark, “Apply Your Hearts to Understanding.”