ACSI’s Understanding the Times

Association of Christian Schools International

Those who cannot use Summit’s complete UTT for whatever reason can still pursue biblical worldview studies. ACSI’s version of Understanding the Times is less expensive since it centers around the abridged book, relying on discussion and activities rather than videos. The teacher edition for this course comes in a three-ring binder, and there is a companion student workbook.

This is an excellent alternative designed for use in Christian schools for a single semester. You might spread the course out over a full school year, using two or three days per week instead of five.

Daily lesson plans guide students through reading, discussion, and activities centered around the ten topics of the book instead of the organization structure used by the Summit video course which emphasizes more current issues. Unlike the Summit course, the ACSI course has students read almost all of the book. The course also requires a significant amount of writing.

The course is definitely designed for an interactive group rather than an independent student, so gather one or more teens to participate with you. The teacher edition includes masters for overheads for classroom use, but the overhead masters can be used directly from the teacher edition rather than reproducing them on transparencies.

The lessons are well designed, even for the teacher unfamiliar with these topics. However, teachers must read the chapters and familiarize themselves with the material ahead of each lesson. Most teachers will probably need to do additional reading and research to prepare themselves to teach this course. You can still supplement with videos and other resources, but the lessons rely on teacher presentation far more than in the Summit course.

The lessons themselves are excellent. They incorporate a significant amount of direct Bible study, something lacking in Summit’s course. The variety of classroom activities—constructing charts, reading, completing lecture notes, brainstorming, role playing, etc.—should be very effective at engaging students at a deeper level than in the video course. This ACSI course makes teaching worldviews more practical than ever for those on a tight budget who have some background in at least some of the topic areas. All I would change would be to supplement with a few videos and require a research paper.