====== About the UTSFL Pro-Life Classroom Project ======

===== Vision =====
The vision of the Pro-Life Classroom Project is to have well-informed, well-formed, well-educated campus club members who are well-trained in the apologetics of the mind and heart, and who are tested and ready to engage their peers and the public in a dialogue about life issues.

==== Key Goals ====
  - To **form and educate** pro-life club members on campus
  - To provide a **regular environment** to learn about life issues, practice apologetics, discuss questions and challenges
  - To give leaders a chance to learn how to **educate their peers**

===== Strategy =====
To use a [[.:seminars:|seminar]] curriculum to structure pre-existing pro-life resources in a format that can be easily used by a variety of campus groups in regular meetings. Some key considerations:
  * Short, frequent, consistent sessions (Suggested: 1-2h weekly)
  * Mix of presentation/dialogue
  * Activate and develop student leaders by giving them an opportunity to educate their peers
  * Develop a curriculum that can be used by any club, implemented easily (like [[:NCLN:]] club manual)

==== Design ====
This seminar curriculum is designed be used by pro-life clubs on campus to educate and form their members. It is designed to be:
  * **spiral**: gradually progressing from basic to advanced material in a spiral (rather than linear) fashion, so students can continually revisit the same topics but at greater depth each time. There are several reasons for this approach:
    * To allow newcomers to **join at any point**, or students to continue even if they miss some seminars (much more difficult with a linear programme) [hop on / hop off]
    * To allow the classroom to be informed by **field experience** (new questions on familiar topics are often raised through experience in the field
    * **Reinforcement**: revisiting the same topics in greater depth is a good way to promote deep learning through reinforcement
  * **modular**: seminar topics are broken into flexible half or full hour modules for several reasons:
    * To accommodate **different schedules**, e.g. modules can be combined to support bi-weekly half hour meetings or weekly two hour meetings
    * To allow room for **role-playing**: a half hour module can be taken into a full hour meeting, with more time left over for questions and role-playing
    * To allow **breadth- or depth-first** approaches: while breadth-first is generally recommended within streams (e.g. PBA 100-level, then PBA 200-level, then PBA 300-level, etc.), a depth-first approach could be useful when there is a time sensitive need to educate club members about a specific issue (e.g. focusing on dialogue and graphic images in preparation for GAP, or on Canadian Law and incrementalism in preparing for activism to support a new legislative effort)
    * To allow for the inclusion of **advanced topics**: these advances topics are too specialized for inclusion in a seminar program every year, but having them in the curriculum can make members //aware// of what advanced topics there are so that they might pick a few to focus on
  * **built on existing lessons**: there are already great resources and materials and lessons available for presenting this material. This curriculum encourages the use of that pre-existing material as much as possible. What this aims to provide, which is missing, is a //structure for campus club seminars//. For example, the CCBR's Pro-Life Classroom is somewhat modular, but it's quite linear (with some advanced topics as side branches). This works well for self-study, but is ill-suited for campus club group study where students might hop on at any point or want to revisit earlier topics in more depth. The curriculum provides a //new structure for delivering the same lessons/content.//
  * **systematic**: the seminar codes (explained below) group topics within units, streams, substreams and related topics, in order to aid in planning particular areas of focus

==== Seminar Codes ====
See [[.:seminars:]].

Example: [[.:seminars:PBA100H]]
  * First two letters signify the unit
    * ''PB'' for pre-born human rights
    * ''EL'' for end-of-life issues
  * Third letter signifies the stream
    * ''A''pologetics
    * ''P''olitics
    * ''H''eart apologetics
    * ''S''trategy
  * The first digit signifies the level
    * ''100'': introductory
    * ''200'': intermediate (for activism, dialogue)
    * ''300'': topics in...
    * ''400'': advanced topics
  * The second digit is often used to group similar topics, e.g.
    * Aplogetics
      * ''PBAx0x'': second premise objections
        * ''PBAx01-x04'': science
        * ''PBAx05-x09'': personhood
      * ''PBAx1x'': first premise objections
      * ''PBAx2x'': Dialogue substream
    * Politics
      * ''PBPx0x'': Current law and History
      * ''PBPx1x'': Political Activism
        * ''PBPx11-x14'': Federal
        * ''PBPx15-x19'': Provincial
      * ''PBPx2x'': Public Policy Issues
    * ''PBxx8x'': Independent Study Projects, e.g. books to read
    * ''PBxx90'': field trips / activism
  * The last letter refers to suggested length
    * ''H'' means half hour (20-30 min.)
    * ''Y'' means full hour (45-60 min.)



===== Tactics =====
  * Each session should include:
    * Brief presentation (50-75%)
    * When relevant, role-playing or breakout session (25%)
    * Time for questions (25%)
  * Variety of presenters:
    * Primary, strong exec member(s) who commit to implementing curriculum for the year and oversee the program (e.g. Education Coordinator / Professor)
      * Make it work
    * Secondary, invite other student leaders to lead seminars on topics of interest
      * Activate leaders, give them an opportunity to engage more deeply with material by teaching it to others
    * Special Occassions: Guest speakers, to provide longer presentations to the club on areas of expertise