The Kohelet Prize Database
Pedagogy: 21st Century Skills
Explore the Kohelet Prize Database
Prize Categories
- Interdisciplinary Integration (79)
- Real-World Learning (105)
- Learning Environment (30)
- Differentiated Instruction (45)
- Development of Critical and / or Creative Thinking (56)
- Risk Taking and Failure (12)
Pedagogy
- Blended Learning (112)
- Constructivist (195)
- Design Thinking (41)
- Experiential Education (65)
- Flipped Learning (13)
- Gamification (6)
- Hevruta (31)
- IBL - Inquiry Based Learning (135)
- Language Immersion (13)
- Montessori (21)
- PBL - Project Based Learning (238)
- Social Emotional Learning (54)
- Socratic Method (10)
- Soulful Education (17)
- Whole Brain Teaching (27)
- UBD - Understanding By Design (105)
- 21st Century Skills (273)
Subjects
- Art (149)
- Computer Science (73)
- Economics (8)
- Engineering (28)
- English/ Writing/ Language Arts (181)
- Gemara (65)
- Halacha (104)
- History (173)
- Ivrit (118)
- Literature (159)
- Math (102)
- Mishnah (73)
- Music (56)
- Philosophy (46)
- Physical Education/ Health (11)
- Science (151)
- Social Emotional Learning (53)
- Social Studies (44)
- Tanach (177)
- Technology (40)
- Tefila (19)
Grades
- Elementary School (156)
- Middle School (213)
- High School (213)
- Kindergarten (79)
- 1st Grade (89)
- 2nd Grade (101)
- 3rd Grade (117)
- 4th Grade (129)
- 5th Grade (155)
- 6th Grade (151)
- 7th Grade (142)
- 8th Grade (138)
- 9th Grade (104)
- 10th Grade (110)
- 11th Grade (110)
- 12th Grade (109)
Israel Hebrew Curriculum
For millennia Jews did little to return home. After its creation, Israel became central to Jewish Schools; yet, most lack an Israel Curriculum. Striving to create pride in Medinat Yisrael and a sense of Jewish Identity in its accomplishments, our interdisciplinary grade 6-9 curriculum teaches the creation and evolution of the State in Hebrew including the songs of the Aliyot and the wars.
Mishkeh Mechanic / Success Strategist 2.0
Middle school students completed a project in their STEAM cross-curricular class and followed the Teshuva process to "realize," and thus capitalize upon, their mistakes and successes; this highly replicable, easily transferable project took on a far-reaching mind of its own, with students at the helm of the real-life skills ship.
Derech Eretz, Respect, and Consent: Middot in the Modern Age
This program is an interdisciplinary exploration of current events, Tanach, and literature to examine the meaning and application of derech eretz in a modern Jewish context.
Creators of Content: How Students Can Co-Design Their Understanding of Their World
Students at Pressman Academy from grades K-5th participate in STEAM twice a week for 45 minutes. During this time they are presented with a variety of options to explore a given content area. Ultimately they create prototypes to solve complex problems and models to represent how they understand the world using tools from cardboard to CNC machines.
JSTEAM – Melacha Makerspace
JSTEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) Makerspace. STEAM through a Jewish lens in sync with Maimonides School's mission creating a beautiful blend of Torah and Worldly experience with hands-on creativity.
Baby Moshe’s Basket 2.0 and Domino Designs: Shemot 2:3 and 2:5 Reinvisioned through the Lens of STEAM and Design Thinking
Harnessing the power of STEAM and Design Thinking, students built and attempted to float a tevah to garner insight into Moshe’s birth mother’s attempt to save him from death, and designed and executed a domino formation based on the significance of the actions of Bat Paroah and other characters central to the early experiences of the Jews in Egypt.
Differentiated Instruction Through the Lens of Multiple Intelligences
Using Gardner's multiple intelligences as a guiding lens for differentiating instruction to students with varied learning profiles, we created a differentiated unit for a Middle School Chumash class learning the topic of Nazir (Numbers 6: 1-8). The instructional tools address the unique learning styles and intelligences of students in any subject.
TTN – Torah Times News
Live coverage of the breaking news stories of the Torah as it unfolds minute by minute. Narrate the weekly Torah portion as a news script and film the students acting as news anchors, reporters, meteorologist, etc. then edit into a short video to share with other schools and public viewers.
Maimonides Integrated Connections
Three interconnected gears with the letters M.I.C. representing Maimonides Integrated Connections. This encourages students and teachers to find cross-curricular connections, bridging various subjects and disciplines, and integrating classroom learning with real life experiences.
Renewal of Rabbinic Ordination Project
Students, draw from talmudic, rabbinic literature and historical sources, to create a dialogue between two 16th century rabbinic figures. Their debate touches on the centrality of rabbinic ordination to the Jewish legal system. Is there a possibility of its restoration and what meaningful ramifications can its return have in the modern day world.
Keva Vs Kavanah: The Trial of the Millennium
Middle school students learn Rabbinic texts about prayer’s structure, purpose, and origins, while simultaneously evaluating their own relationship with Tefillah in a reflection journal. The entire unit builds to a trial created by the students and presided over by a panel of local community rabbis, pitting Keva Tefillah against Kavanah Tefillah.
A Trial of Error: A Project Based Learning (PBL) Approach to Student Self Reflection through the Lens of Repentance
In an effort to develop their critical thinking skills, the students staged a mock trial, demonstrating the process of reflection and repentance outlined in Jewish law. The process included analyzing the laws, reflecting on their actions, implementing the steps of repentance, evaluating how to prove each step and creating admissible evidence.
Carpe Diem – How do you Seize your Day?
In my AP Language and Composition class, which combines grades 11-12 at our girl's campus, there is a pervasive theme in each of our texts this year. It is carpe diem, seize the day, or a lack of carpe diem. In order to truly understand this theme my class worked on a project to describe, create, and share their thoughts about this concept.
The Story of Our People: From One Generation to the Next
A keynote project in which students create professional documentaries based on the "Survivor Circles" experience & showcased in a beautiful community-wide Film Festival as the hallmark of a newly written literacy-based, student-centered curriculum for Modern Jewish History that integrates academic skills with primary sources.
JCDS Learning Adventures
JCDS Learning Adventures are deeply immersive week-long interdisciplinary units developed around real-world challenges. While students in each grade have amazingly diverse experiences, all Learning Adventures are connected by a common pedagogical vision: students collaborating to develop and share solutions to tangible real-world problems.
Elementary students run a multi-media newspaper
Upper elementary students run their own multi-media news outlet. Students report on issues of importance to their community, and learn journalistic and technology skills to create multi-media materials, such as a monthly print newspaper, podcasts, and video news reports.
Earth Science
Working backwards from the physical and topographical design of Israel, the connection between Israel, Earth Science and Halacha, and the consideration of our (Fuchs Mizrachi Lower School’s) physical location in the world; this unit was designed to ask and answer six essential questions that take the students on a journey across many disciplines.
Learning in Common: Creating a School-Wide Collaborative Learning Space
The Information and Technology team of Portland Jewish Academy recognized the need for a more collaborative, connective, and centralized learning space for our school. We created a place that is a living expression of our core values of limmud (study), kehillah (community), and zehut (Jewish identity).
Creating a High School STEM Center
Considering current learning standards, we planned for a true STEM Center in which we truly highlight 21st century student skills and motivate their accomplishments beyond a traditional academic track. In our submission, we describe how the STEM Center was created including conception, construction, ongoing instruction, training and maintenance.
Virtual Jerusalem Mayoral Elections
The Virtual Jerusalem Mayoral Elections allowed 12th-grade students to explore the diverse, real-world needs facing Jerusalem residents and the multicultural nature of the city, through researching different candidates and issues, creating campaigns and taking a leadership role in their own learning, running mock elections for a different grade.
Crash Helmet Design, Prototyping, and Testing: An Egg-Citing Physics and Engineering Design PBL
In this authentic project, high school students develop crash helmets with a goal of protecting a population of people from traumatic head (brain) injury. Using eggs to simulate human heads, students employ the design thinking process by engaging in real-world research, scientific data collection, engineering prototyping, and performance testing.
Schechter Westchester’s TOM (Tikkun Olam Makers) Makeathon
SW's TOM Makeathon, a fully student-run initiative, is the embodiment of our school's dual goals: the application of real-world skills to revolutionize student thinking and improve the world in tangible ways. Teams of students work with individuals with disabilities to design and fabricate products that will make daily life more manageable.
Kehilla: A Study in Empathy and Perspective
Our big idea is that: in order to be empathetic, we need to be able to understand others’ perspectives. Through experiences with text (Hebrew, Judaic and otherwise), music, visual arts, and drama, students explore what shapes perspective, how perspective changes over time, and how understanding others' perspectives helps us interact effectively.
Art as a Lens to the Holocaust and Genocide: The Legacy Project
Middle schoolers become researchers, artists, historians, and storytellers, exploring memorials and monuments through an integrated year-long study in Judaism, Fine Arts, and Humanities. This project-focused learning fosters deep understanding and engagement about the Holocaust on a personal level as well as within a deeper global context.
The Shefa Revolution: Strategizing Judaic Studies
To access Torah’s rich narratives, students require solidified language skills and strategies. At Shefa, reading comprehension and writing strategies explicitly taught in ELA classes provide a springboard to dive into Torah. This Judaic Studies curriculum created for Shefa is a replicable model for cross-curricular integration and differentiation.
Connecting the Unconnected
“Connecting the Unconnected” is a collaborative learning experience that brings together sixth through eighth grade students at six Jewish day schools in small Jewish communities to connect Jewish history and values with social justice, civil rights, and American and Israeli heritage through classroom learning and real-world experiences.
“Kids around the world do the same things in different ways.” Kindergarten students create The Museum of the Universal Languages of Childhood
The Kindergarten theme of community was woven into all aspects of our curriculum and was explored through the lens of global competency. Our multidisciplinary curricular approach to learning culminated in the creation of The Museum of the Universal Languages of Childhood that represented the languages of celebrations, games, and fine arts.
Using Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle to Effect Change in Our Community
11th Grade AP Language students were tasked with identifying & researching a community issue, creating an advertisement campaign to raise awareness of the issue, and writing articles that incorporated their research and Aristotle's rhetorical strategies. Student work was published in our school newspaper & displayed around the community.
Medical Ethics Hospital Simulation
Teaching hands on, real life medical ethics utilizating a major medical centers simualtion center, we bring students into the hospital, where they have the opportunity to learn how to participate in various cutting edge and routine medical procedures, as they encounter potential ethical issues in them and then study and discuss relevant Torah.
Austin Jewish Academy (AJA) Fifth-Grade Sustainability Curriculum
As part of AJA's commitment to educating life-long environmental stewards, Ms. Hidalgo developed a reproducible model curriculum to teach sustainability through opportunities for real-world learning. Her program involves innovative classroom study and school-to-farm service learning and has an extraordinary impact on her students and AJA community.
A Personal Journey through Parshat Hashavua
Parshat Hashavua – The Weekly Torah Portion:
The weekly Parsha becomes relevant and personal in our First Grade class and prepares students for life in the 21st century. With the advent of the internet, information is at our fingertips. The challenge is what do we do with that information? In addition, devices are becoming more accessible and usag
Immigration Perspectives
Students studied the push and pull factors of immigration. They examined how immigration trends affected immigration laws and policies and analyzed the human experience of immigrants. In this study, students interviewed immigrants, read and watched documentaries, created immigrant character profiles and write historical journals.
Yosef Through the Lens: A Co-Teaching PBL Experiment in combining Jewish text, Psychology and Photography in a heterogeneous classroom
This entry is our reflection on the successes and failures during our attempt to co-teach the Yosef narratives through a multi-faceted PBL in a heterogeneous classroom consisting of 9th and 10th grade boys.
Film Festival in Bloom
The goal of the fifth grade film festival project is to develop critical thinking across the curriculum by integrating the use of Bloom’s taxonomy in a project that encompasses writing, researching, technology, math, environmental science, and service.
3rd Grade Judaic Studies iPad Project
A year-long project designed to foster long-term retention of technology skills, develop reading comprehension and direction-following skills, and encourage independent thinking and collaborative learning. Includes images for beginning of project. Use of JI Tap Pro not required but allows for privacy of students’ work.
Why do we research and look for alternatives?
Why should Kitah Dalet learn about alternative energy? What do our Jewish Texts teach us about G-d’s creation, Earth? How can children begin to research, build, and educate other students about alternative sources? The Alternative Energy Project is an interactive and engaging curriculum that focus on both responsibility and abstract thinking.
Am I My Brother’s Keeper? From The Torah to S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders
You Be The Judge: What does Jewish Law say should happen to Ponyboy Curtis? An exploration and analysis of S.E. Hinton’s American Classic, The Outsiders
The Prepared Environment
Our innovative, Montessori inspired environment allows our children to work in a warm, exciting and stress-free atmosphere that promotes high motivation and a love for learning. This model creates the ability for each child to receive a customized curriculum according to what s/he needs which encourages emotional, social, and academic success.
Bayit Rishon Museum
The Bayit Rishom Museum is a project that was developed to allow students to view Tanach as a historical vehicle and for Mesopotamian artifacts to be used to appreciate Jewish History. Using important historical artifacts, students created virtually museums to teach about the Bayit Rishon Era.
The Space We Create
The presentation that follows is based on years of perseverance and experimentation as to what makes for a meaningful and happy learning space for children. “The Space We Create" shows how this is cultivated by using everyday materials to create innovative and flexible classroom spaces. With dedication and care, children will thrive.
Student Centered Chumash Class
Differentiated instruction is crucial in education, because every student should be given the opportunity to maximize his/her potential. Shifting my Chumash class into a more student-centered one has helped me reach this goal. In this model, students play an active role in their learning, and they produce work that demonstrates authentic learning.
School’s Cancelled: A Day of Non-Traditional Learning
How do you promote real world skills in a traditional school atmosphere? During Expo Days at YDLV, classes are cancelled and students embark on a themed journey of learning and inspiration, giving them the opportunity to practice non-traditional skills with a variety of exercises and challenges built for real world learning.
Environment + Energy = Engaged, Motivated and Successful Students
A Montessori inspired environment for an elementary school child that is conducive to problem solving, independent learning, respect, positive time on task, with modeled expectations will create a caring and safe place for children to be successful, excited and engaged in learning.
Integration of Vygotzky’s Zone of Proximal Development Theorem in the Singapore Math Program
The implementation of the combination of Vygotzky's theorem of the zone of proximal development with the Singapore math program presents significant benefits in creating the critical thinking skills and developing the required cognitive functions for understanding complex mathematical concepts.
EVERlab 2.0: a next generation Beit Midrash
EVERlab is a learning environment dedicated to the integration of ideas and concepts from Jewish studies and “secular” academics. It combines elements of a conventional maker-space, including iteration, prototyping and design-thinking with the ethos of a Beit Midrash: the critical/open exchange of ideas and a collaborative search for deeper truth.
A Musician for Life: Improvisation, buckets, and multimedia reviving instrumental music for the centennial generation.
I’m reinventing the idea of middle school band – by orienting my lessons around creative improvisation and multimedia. improvisation in music curriculum is the key to countering the distractions facing increasingly wired youth. By using lessons like bucket band and film scoring, I’ve been stimulating their creative potential.
Proyekt “Ani”/ The “I Am” Project – Integrating Mediation and Contemplative Practice into the Judaic Studies Classroom
Students learn breathing and meditation techniques, and tools for emotional regulation in the classroom as part of the morning Tefilah ritual. Each meditation deepens the students' connection to their Jewish identity by connecting to weekly Parasha, the Hebrew month, and Tefilah. Students reflect on how they connect as Jews and spiritual beings.
True Tefila
In the aftermath of hurricane Irma, our school building sustained significant damage, forcing the relocation of the entire middle school. The students responded to the chaos of the new learning environment with an unrelenting determination of meaningful prayer. This response, was an outgrowth of the foundation for Tefila established in our class.
The Super You Project
To give my students the opportunity to creatively document their lives as 5th graders, I assigned them the “Super You” project. It didn’t turn out to be the productive tool for differentiating instruction I’d hoped. In the end, though, my students were happy with their products and I felt committed to improve the project for the future.
מה רבו מעשיך—Science with a Jewish Soul: an Integrated Science Program for Young Children
Yearlong program integrates Jewish life of young children with their developing scientific minds; connects Jewish learning relevant to the child at that time: holidays, Parshah, blessings, Mitzvot; inspires in children love of science & spiritual awe of the world around them; fosters creative, critical thinking, teamwork & empathic problem solving.
Prison Reform and Arei Miklat: A PBL Approach to High School Talmud Study
A PBL approach to Talmud study can help students connect values from the text to their own lives in an authentic way, irrespective of how practical (or impractical) the cases in the Gemara. In this unit, students used their knowledge of Masekhet Makkot and Arei Miklat to research solutions for problems with the American prison system.
Scheduling Circus
Creating a school schedule is difficult. Furthermore, creating a schedule that works for 14 multi-age, multi-level, individual students with very different academic and social-emotional needs, seems nearly impossible. It was through a journey of taking great risks and reflecting on failures that brought our classroom the schedule(s) we all needed.
Living Israeli History: Underground Bullet Factory
Putting themselves in the shoes of teenagers building a new life in the land (and budding State) of Israel, students become historians. Partnership and perseverance are needed as students work together to overcome challenges of immigrants and pioneers in the most perilous of predicaments - living and working in an underground bullet factory!
From Me to We: Creating and Hosting an Empty Bowls event
We strive to perform Tikkun Olam and assist those in poverty. Through a series of scaffolded skill-building experiences, ranging from letter writing to pottery, we organized an Empty Bowls event; donating proceeds to local organizations dedicated to helping those less fortunate. We transformed our goal into our passion.
STEAM into Service
Environmentalism and sustainability are topics rooted in Jewish values and very relevant in today’s world. Through exploration, collaboration, research, field trips, and learning from guest professionals, students understand the struggles we face, the steps being taken to develop more sustainable practices, and recognize that they too can help.
Entrepreneurship in Practice: Teaching Future Jewish Business Leaders
Golda Och Academy’s 12th grade Entrepreneurship Course has enriched the lives of fifty students in the last 7 years who have gone on to become business leaders. The course assesses and analyzes leadership, walks through the steps of starting a business and has a practicum where students turn an idea into a realized business operating in school.
Beth Tfiloh’s Lower School Israel Fair: A Student-led Interdisciplinary Experience
Beth Tfiloh Lower School students participated in a multi-week and school-wide interdisciplinary learning experience about various landmarks in Israel. Students (K-4th grade) conceived of, developed, and created fifteen hands-on exhibits to share their learning with the broader student and family community.
An Interdisciplinary Study of the Lenape People
SW’s aim is for students to cultivate their identity as global citizens who recognize and respect cultural similarities and differences among kol yoshvei tevel (all who dwell on Earth). Our third-grade study of the Lenape tribe showcases that effort through an integrated curriculum incorporating hands-on, project-based learning and exploration.
Students Making Connections: Oral Histories
We believe outreach to the community makes us stronger; thus, we create projects in which students move outside the classroom to interview community members and write reflections detailing how this experience affected them.
Olam Chesed Yibaneh – Building a World of Kindness
Our school embarked on a year-long, cross-grade chesed project that encouraged students to think critically about problems in our community, city, and country, and to begin to solve those problems. This project stems from the psalm that states: "The world was built on loving kindness."
Israeli Master Chef Carmel Style: Making Hebrew Learning Real and Personal
Students brought their Hebrew learning to life by fusing it with their interests in context of daily lives. They recorded a video guiding the audience in making their favorite dish by applying their Hebrew skills, higher critical thinking and tech skills, research, and writing skills. Students’ videos were assessed and voted on by their peers.
New Directions in Jewish Community: The Jewish Emergent Network (JEN)
This unit explored the innovative and exciting new spiritual communities of the Jewish Emergent Network. It expanded their sense of what is happening in today's Jewish world; allowed them to engage directly with the communities they were studying; and pushed them to think seriously about what they want for their own ongoing communal involvement.
Enhancing STEM Enrichment Curricula
To increase student passion and development in STEM, I have designed and crafted new and innovative enrichment courses in both computer science and high-level physics. This includes an on-ramp course in computer science principles, a second-year computer science course, and a two-year rotation of four semester long physics courses.
Making a Talmudic Sugya Occupy Space
Students composed their own talmudic sugyas using argument forms mastered during their year of study, based on key themes in biblical and talmudic texts they had learned. They then transferred the concepts of their sugyas into three-dimensional sculptures that reflect the thesis and arguments of the sugyas they had written.
#FailureFridays: Helping Students Embrace Risk Taking and Failure
#FailureFridays is a class-wide program that integrated daily social and emotional learning (SEL) with curricular lessons to foster a greater appreciation for risk taking and failure. Students applied critical and creative thinking to Tanach study, engaged in daily journaling, and discussed their setbacks and successes at a weekly class meeting.
Price of Life
The low amount of organ donors worldwide creates a lack of supply of organs for transplant. Students write a personal essay on whether or not they will sign an organ donor card, as well as produce an event with the goal of educating the community about the the problem of organ trafficking and its relationship with the signing of an organ donor card.
Abstract, Bridge, Create- Using the ABC’s of literature and language to manifest concrete connections in learning
Literature and language are difficult ideas for students to grasp. My students translate these ambiguous concepts into tangible projects requiring them to explore abstract ideas, bridge their connections, and create symbolic representations with technologies and strategies that commit their analyses to long-term memory and store them as knowledge.
Creating a Positive Environment for All Children
The South Florida Jewish Academy engages in a holistic approach to education. All teachers, in every subject and at every level work seamlessly as a team to put together a comprehensive plan for each student. This manifests itself in numerous creative and innovative programs and curricula.
The Innovation Lab – The Space where Maker Ed and Jewish Ed Inspire
We’ve built a culture designed around an open space where students actualize content learned in their Jewish day school & apply it in ways that are most meaningful to them. Students collaborate & think creatively, using 3D printers, woodworking, coding, graphic design, and a host of other tools to create tangible outcomes of their education.
“Change the world. It just takes cents”TM
"Change the world. It just takes cents"TM is a student-led, teacher-mentored, PBL, service-learning, experiential education, Tikkun Olam, multidisciplinary process, where lessons evolve organically, and students are the creators of their learning blueprint, rather than being enslaved to textbooks. Students emerge empowered advocates and leaders.
Unique classroom methodology implemented in HS Coding class
An overview of the unique and productive technical learning approach - essentially an integration of personal and formal educational theories together with the teaching framework defined by codeHS.com - I implemented in the Coding and STEM robotics class I currently teach at Rae Kushner High School.
Differentiated Reading of Literary Works
A learner based model for reading whole literary works, that affords unlimited possibilities for differentiation, using Google Classroom.
STEM Education and Crosscutting Concepts
The Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School has developed a model of STEM integration with general and Judaic studies using the Next Generation Science Standard's Crosscutting Concepts (CCC). This model of integration is the only one in the nation and is the subject of research and collaboration with The George Washington University.
Interdisciplinary Integration Through Service Learning for Middle School Students
Classroom instruction focuses on the sources and then the development of Jewish law. It is then taken out of the classroom weekly so that students have the opportunity to put the lessons into practice. Lessons and projects incorporate language arts and math skills, torah, art, technology, science, and health.
Teva Tuesday
Each week our students in our 4-5th grades spend an afternoon outdoors to learn, become aware of and appreciate the vital role the earth plays in our existence. Students are encouraged to gain a deep, profound respect for the environment, to become Shomer Adamah (Guardians of the Land) through study of Jewish texts that promote these ideas.
Modular Educational Games
A kit to produce educational games in any language, in any subject, and at any level of difficulty. The process of creating these games develops the student’s learning abilities (focus on detail, categorization, collaboration,self-direction) and social skills.
These games can be used as a part of teaching, reinforcement, review, and assessment.
Fundamentals of Economics & Business and Jewish Business Ethics
This entry describes a year-long course at Maimonides, enabling Juniors to study the Fundamentals of Economics, both as a rigorously taught social science class, and as a deep consideration of the ethical and moral teachings of Judaism on the topic. The entry focuses on the many opportunities for Real World Learing for students through this course
Canada 150 School-Wide Inquiry Project
The Hamilton Hebrew Academy set out to provide our students with an outstanding learning experience in celebration of Canada 150. Every student conducted an inquiry project, which facilitated the development of their critical and creative thinking skills. The event culminated in a community wide learning showcase at a Canadian historical site.
Wearing Our Values: The importance of working on ourselves
Our tradition tells us that as Jews, we can enjoy the pleasures of the world, but in an appropriate manner. By connecting our love of Torah and its values with love of fashion, we aim to do just that, and to show that clothing doesn’t define the man-or woman -but we define our clothing, using it to make a statement about how to live a life of mitzvot.
Flags of the Tribes of Israel: A Media Arts and Chumash “Integrated Creative Judaics” Production
In this three week "Integrated Creative Judaics" unit,11th grade students delved into the roots of Midrash Rabbah Bemidbar 2.7 in an exploration of the tribal flags of the Israelites and identity. They then drew upon their wisdom to create "fruits of the soul" by designing and animating flags based upon their learning.
Integrated English 11/Media Arts: A Failed Attempt to Institute a Progressive Educational Program into a College Preparatory High School
There is hubris in imagining that just because we developed a program that would lead to enhanced student learning that it should happen. But we did do our best to identify a problem, recruit faculty and students, present funding opportunities, and further the school mission in the areas of Judaic integration, integrity, and personalized learning.
Inspiring All Learners through Multi-Age Classrooms
Through our new multi-age format, the Schechter faculty differentiates and optimizes student learning. This progressive model reaches diverse learners within a single classroom environment and is transforming student engagement, individualized instruction, social outlets, improved self-esteem, and richly integrated curriculum.
4th Grade Business Plan
We introduce students to Tikkun Olam through development of nonprofit business plans. Students work collaboratively to create plans and make presentations. Once presentations are completed, students present plans to judges who help students think critically about plans. Then classes run businesses and help charitable organizations.
Are You ‘Board’ with Traditional Lesson Plans? GAME ON!
GameOn! provides students with innovative skills they use to create board games based on their mastery of a particular topic. Students transform their knowledge of any subject into a tool used by other students. Creating a website, we connected classrooms across the globe through educational game play and development.
Mishkeh Mechanic/Success Strategist
Eighth grade students completed a project in STEM class, documenting throughout using the SeeSaw app's video and picture abilities, and crafted a non-fiction “narrative" in Language Arts class, where they followed the Teshuva process to "realize," and thus capitalize upon, their mistakes.
Shimshon Mistook His Wife For a Hat: Integrated Psychology-Tanach Project
Students study topics in psychology and integrate new concepts with an analysis of the characters and plot from a Biblical text to write a modern, psychological Midrash. Students use social media to contact experts in the field, then work in teams to deploy new understanding to construct and refine “interventions” for the Biblical character.
The Flexible Mindset
The Flexible Mindset, used in a kindergarten classroom, is a combination of growth mindset, flexible seating, and integrated projects. This combination makes for a learning environment that is ever changing to meet the needs of each student in the classroom community and bring learning to life.
Three Models of the Integrated Online Classroom
Three different models of the integrated online classroom are examined and evaluated in this study. All three models utilize the PowerSchool Learning platform (formerly Haiku Learning). The study compares and contrasts the models, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Nutrition Nibbles
To conclude our nutrition unit, I challenged my 5th graders to each design a tasty, healthy snack for kids which would be a good source of their assigned vitamin/mineral. Each student would present at our student-designed snack conference, to which we invited other classes. The whole creative process could be applied to various other subjects.
Creating a Culture of Goal-Setting: Intrinsic Motivation and Personalized Learning
In view of the importance of intrinsic motivation as well as personalized learning, kindergarten students at Yeshiva Lab School engaged in an in-depth study of goals and goal-setting. Each child set goals over the course of the year with the guidance of an educator, who used these goals to target instruction.
DASH Weeks
DASH is a comprehensive school wide study of a topic that is carried out in every classroom, Judaic and secular, as well as in the arts. It is cross grade, cross curricular and integrated. The school has now done two DASH units, one last spring and one in November 2017. This fall's topic, "Water: Source of Life" was engaging and exciting.
What do Greece and Arizona Have in Common? Empowerment, Life Skills, and Meaningful Research
Students planned a trip to Greece to learn about literature, ancient history, and Jewish history, researching content, budgeting, fundraising, and halakhot. Success was met with disappointment when the trip was canceled for terrorism. Students regrouped, changing the destination to Arizona to research nature, American history, and the arts.
Creating a Positive Learning Culture
Creating a Positive Learning Environment is is divided into five sections:
• The Goals
• The Space
• The Station Rotation Model
• The Language
• The Organization
Each section of the google slideshow portrays how I have developed my learning environment into a space where positivity and child centered learning is of primary focus.
ART LAB
Today art rooms have become hubs that dynamically enrich students’ lives in multiple ways. The art room at MJGDS uses traditional materials in addition to modern technologies and the infusion of Judaism, Math, Science, Engineering, Language Arts, and Social Studies make it a high tech space for student creativity and innovation.
Kindergartners Construct a South Campus Community Theater to Enhance Their School’s Learning Environment
In Kindergarten at MILTON, the theme of community guided our work and was woven into all aspects of our curriculum. Over the course of a semester, we explored the concept of community through the lens of theater. Our multi-disciplinary curricular approach to learning culminated in the creation of the South Campus Community Theater.
Dvar Torah Project
In the 2017/2018 school year, all of grade 9 and 10 students will create insightful divrei Torah that have been crafted using the skills learned in Tanach and English classes.
These Divrei Torah will demonstrate an ability to clearly describe the context, frame the Dvar Torah on a meaningful and engaging idea, quote and use פסוקים effectively,
Understanding Media Bias
Students will learn how to navigate the news to discern the credibility of a source by investigating what media bias is with their peers, “acting as the journalist” within the classroom, and reflecting on their experiences. Their conclusions will then be applied to their understanding of how to interpret the news in the real-world.
Recreating the Experience at Ma’Amad Har Sinai
מתן תורה is a part of history, as opposed to being a legend. To see a sign is a direct experience. To hear a report of a sign is an indirect experience. For those who do not see the signs themselves due to distance or time, they can still hear a report of these signs through the testimony of the Israelites.
Morah Tovi Admon Co-teaching Program
Looking at a classroom, even when empty, tells a lot about the learning environment. Are students facing the same direction to be receivers of information or are there centers and desk-clusters, meeting areas and reading nooks created to support students in moving through routines, working together, and supporting more independent learning.
Three Biological Systems – The Fuchs Mizrachi 2016-2017 STE(A)M Learning
Every year, the FMS Lower School embarks on an 8 week intensive learning journey in preparation for our annual STE(A)M fair. This journey encompasses so much, but at its core, this experience lays the foundation for life-long learners and information seekers; involvement in this process remains the most valuable lesson for our students in the LS.
MakerLab: Innovation and Creation
Hillel Academy's goal is for students to “learn how to learn”. We don’t give instructions in Makerlab, we give tools and guidance, and challenge the students to find answers and solutions on their own. It is amazing to watch the next generation of innovators get their first taste of inventing.
Gan Chaiot Chadash–The New Zoo Project
With the goal of designing a habitat for an animal on the endangered species list, the students utilized their knowledge of area and perimeter to create a habitat enclosure to scale, research the taxonomy of their chosen animal, and explore our Jewish duty to care for and protect animals. The unit is infused with Hebrew text and vocabulary.
100 Day Sculpture Museum
Happy 100th day of school! In this project, students will be challenged to use exactly 100 items to create a sculpture to be exhibited along with a bar graph and written statement for a special 100th Day Museum. Motivation increases as students apply mathematical skill, creative thinking, and problem-solving to this real-life learning experience.
STEM Day 2.0
I organized and planned a school wide STEM Day. This event consisted of 5 different STEM-based activities that all students in the school actively participated in. All activities were hands-on and allowed the students to see the connection between school, STEM, and the real world.
The Cyber Path to Critical and Creative Thinking
This is a revolutionary approach which incorporates innovative technology to engage students in using higher order thinking in Jewish texts. Using the platform of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, students are guided to create their own content as a means of presenting their understanding of the texts. This approach is also being used by secular studies teachers in our school.
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on HeLa Cells
My 12th grade AP Language and Composition students read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a non-fiction text which explores the intersection of race, American history, and medical ethics through the lens of the discovery of an immortal cell line tied to an African-American woman named Henrietta Lacks. My students’ final project was to examine these intersections through a project that blended independent research with multi-media content. Of particular interest to this category is the student project that tackled the ethical questions raised in the text through the lens of Judaic studies; students who completed this project consulted primary sources as well as experts in Jewish medical ethics to create a presentation they later delivered to the entire student body.
B’reisheet Unit
The basic foundation of everything is the creation of the world, or as we Jews know it: Briat haolam. In my Kindergarten class, Briat haolam is not taught in the mere few days before Parshat B’reisheet, but rather over the course of two to three weeks, depending on the calendar of that specific year. The reason that we take this long in teaching our students about Briat haolam is because we are not just imparting information to them about what was created on each day, but rather, we are allowing our students to experience creation in many different ways: through Science, Literacy, Art and Math. By integrating so many different aspects of the world into the creation unit, we are sending our students an extremely important lesson: Everything is from Hashem!
Torah N Technology- Mishna PowerPoint
The TNT Program (Torah ‘n Technology) at Maimonides integrates curriculum studies and enrichment programs with technology, following our school motto: “A Beautiful Blend, Torah and Worldly Experience.” This program helps students find relevant and creative expression to their learning, as well as instruction in important technology skills.
The Mishna/Talmud PowerPoint program empowers students to creatively visualize the content and Mishnaic language, transforming basic words, letters, and text into an exciting multi-media format.
The Talent Center Handbook & Extra Challenge Project Kit
The Talent Center Handbook shows how to develop creative young Jewish leaders with an 18 word curriculum in just 30 Minutes a Week. Emek’s game-changing Extra Challenge Projects connect holistic Torah learning, technology, and Jewish design thinking through child-led community service passion projects.
Shake Your Lulav!
This is a Google Slide presentation about the mitzva of Ushpizin, welcoming honorary guests into the sukkah, which integrates content and skill building, as well as Hebrew language acquisition. It was originally designed for use as a flipped classroom.
Personalized Talmud Learning
The model of Talmud instruction in Jewish Day schools has remained mostly intact for decades. The trends suggest that a higher percentage of middle school students are graduating with weak Talmud skills, and a lack of understanding of the purpose of Talmud and appreciation for its role in Jewish life. This has led many schools to even consider abandoning Talmud in middle school curriculum. Our innovative approach to Talmud uses a data-driven model to create personalized learning pathways that students progress through based on proficiency and mastery in eight specific domains that provide a comprehensive understanding of Talmud - including content, vocabulary, functional structures, and real-life application.
MULTI-LEVELED DIFFERENTIATION
This is a revolutionary system that uses technology to differentiate learning based on multiple cognitive learning factors that affect the learning process. Each student is catered to according his or her unique circumstances and abilities.
License to Read Hebrew
This is a reading program designed to foster an enjoyment of reading Hebrew while cultivating the skills necessary for navigating Jewish life.
Judaic Differentiation
I have created a system of differentiation where students can learn, practice and demonstrate Chumash (Bible) skills at their levels. Upon mastery, students create videos, where they apply acquired skills to unfamiliar text, to be virtual teachers for other students. The compilation of these videos gets posted to a website to populate a student-created Khan Academy for Judaic skills.
Jewish For Life: Dual Track Judaic Curriculum
Our Moreshet Yisrael track uses a thematic approach to teach traditional and modern sources in English whereas our Moreshet Torani track adheres to text-based learning in Hebrew. Regardless of track, when oral or midrashic traditions are introduced, they are taught with a clear understanding that even oral traditions are anchored to the text. There is a recognition among our teachers that many of the skills students develop in the serious pursuit of Judaic Studies (such as critical thinking, deductive reasoning, close reading of texts) can and will be employed in General Studies subjects such as language arts, science, and social studies.
Heivanti
Using a Blended Learning model, Heivanti is designed to strengthen the irreplaceable power of live teacher-to-student engagement while introducing unparalleled levels of differentiation and unmatched one-on-one attention to traditional upper school Judaic Studies.
Global Competency For Jewish Learners
A Grade 10 Global Competency Course that will empower and engage our students to become global citizens within a Jewish context. Students will learn a diverse range of practical skills to prepare them for jobs of the future. The final class project will be a fully kosher, volunteer service trip to Ecuador, where students will build a school, visit a Synagogue in Quito, celebrate Shabbat in the Andes and put into practice the lessons they learned during the course.
Fostering Metacognition as Differentiation: Keeping Student Portfolios
For the past five years, I have taught at a cloud-based school in which I have built a digital portfolio-driven course for 9th and 10th grade English. This course is premised on periodic self-assessments and benchmarks of portfolio "publishing" at the quarter and semester points. The attached document details the moments of self-assessment, the uses of self-assessment in the school calendar, the uses of self-assessment as a means for formative and summative assessment, and the development of metacognition in each student through the personalized differentiation of goals, challenges, and successes as readers, writers, and students. While used in high school English, this model for cloud-based portfolio keeping works on any level of student production and teacher assessment--from Elementary through High School, and for
any discipline, too.
Focus on Growth – Differentiation Through Student Goal Setting
Our committee of educators designed and implemented a Focus on Growth initiative for our kindergarten through fifth grade students. This initiative encourages students and teachers to work together to set differentiated personal goals, monitor progress, and celebrate achievement in a variety of areas.
Flipped Instruction
Differentiated instruction is crucial in education, because every student should be given the opportunity to maximize his/her potential. Integrating flipped instruction in my Chumash classes has helped me reach this goal. I prepare videos for my students to watch at home, and we then use class time to process and analyze the material.
Differentiation and Newsela.com: A Match Made in Heaven
My entry discusses the need for every teacher and Learning Specialist to use this website in their classrooms or Learning Centers. It can be used for differentiation among students from third grade, all the way through high school.
Creating an focused but open engineering makerspace
During this 6 week course, students were exposed to open-ended engineering design and multidisciplinary entrepreneurship in this unique makerspace course. Students with minimal background in STEM and electronics came away with a physical 3d prototype with sensors coded on arduino, a blog/website, initial business analysis, and in many cases an app. These were all created by the students with guidance from students a few years older. Students were given short focused PBL lessons to build their skills in key areas such as electronics, arduino coding, patent law, business development, app design etc. followed up by individualized online learning specific for their projects.
Chopped (pronounced “חפט“)
Inspired by the hit cooking show “Chopped” teams of Hilchot Brachot students used mystery ingredients to create their own recipes. While the members of a team had to work with the same mystery ingredients, each team member was responsible for developing a unique recipe for their specific bracha. Final recipes were put together into a class cookbook. Who has lots left to learn and who. has. chopped?
An Executive Functioning Model Implementing Differentiated Instruction
It is vital for children to develop the tools of Executive Functioning in order to discover their own sense of self, intrinsic motivation, self confidence, curiosity and exploration. Students who have the opportunities to develop Executive Functioning Skills are able to succeed in their learning and development, while participating in a learning environment which optimizes success. This model can be implemented across grades, in all subject areas, with varying levels of intervention, to provide differentiated instruction.
“Reaching Each Child”.
Our Sages say "chanoch l'naar al pi darko" - teach each child in their own way. It is critical to understand the student as an individual with their strengths and weaknesses. Only then can we truly educate them.
בכל דור ודור – B’chol Dor Va’dor
“B’chol Dor Va’dor” is an independent anchor activity for accelerated Tanakh students that encourages meaningful inter-textual exploration of Tanakh requiring creativity and reflection. Students identified underlying themes of Pessach by analyzing eighteen events in Tanakh that took place on the dates of Pessach. Their work culminated in the creation of their own Seder Symbols which were then used at their family sedarim to help enhance the experience of these themes on Pessach.
Yeshivat Noam: Connecting the Past to the Present and Making it Relevant to Middle School Students Using the Arts and Technology
Our unit of study explores the Immigrant Experience of 1880-1924 and the Holocaust to guide students to connect to the past which will broaden the students' understanding of his/her role in the present and his/her place in the future. Through the lens of individuals (Holocaust Survivors and New-Immigrants), students will be able to connect, appreciate, and apply key moments in history.
Yad Hayotzer: An Interdisciplinary, Experiential Approach to Teaching the Prophets
Jeremiah Chapters 18-19 explore the interplay between God and His people as the fashioner of Jewish destiny through the agency of a potter. Jeremiah’s symbolic action comes to life as each student experiences "becoming" the potter, realizing the challenges of imprinting one’s vision on another. This project enhances the tefilla experience for our students as they explore the Yom Kippur piyyut - KaChomer BeYad HaYotzer, Like Clay in the Hands of the Potter - and helps shape their understanding of the roles of fate and free-will, both in the history of the Jewish people and in their own lives.
TED Talks- overcoming adversity
After reading novels including Out of the Dust, The Miracle Worker, The Outsiders and A Long Walk to Water, students, as a final project, had to write and present their own TED Talk related to overcoming adversity. It could be personal or about a person that they knew. They watched several TED Talks, we studied the format, and instead of writing an essay, my students were required to write a speech using a hook, an anecdote to rig the reader in, a strong introduction, a body paragraph and statistics to support the points made, and a final concluding paragraph with a powerful clincher or message. They were also required to prepare visuals as well. (As a side note, those who felt uncomfortable exposing information, could choose a more neutral topic related to NGO's and how they are helping people through out the third world in particular.)We then invited parents to the band room, set up the room to seem like a TED conference, and the students presented their speeches. It brought many parents to tears, and was a powerful lesson on human strength and endurance even during difficult times.
STEAM Initiative
The Ma’ayanot STEAM initiative orchestrates a learning environment which fosters creativity and reasoning, compelling students to evaluate, ideate, prototype, test, and iterate . Our philosophy is one of Constructionism which shares constructivism’s connotation of learning as ‘building knowledge structures’ and adds the idea that this happens most pronounced in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing an entity. Students are forced to engage dynamically with their creations in order to prevail in the fruition of their design.
Senior Magazines
Every year my high school senior English classes dive into a series of writing exercises and research to create outstandingly honest narratives integral to their self-understanding. The students then publish these essays in a class magazine that they themselves design and distribute.
Pirkei Avot to Pop Song
Mishnah was made to be sung. Well, if not sung then certainly repeated (coming from the root shanah). How better to get our students to repeat -- and through repetition, remember -- the mishnayot of Pirkei Avot than by singing them? How better to get our students to sing sections of Pirkei Avot than by having them write and record their own songs?!
Olivia’s Creative Compilations – Jewish Texts Come to Life!
Whether it is marrying off two characters from "Once Upon a Time" in an Orthodox Jewish ceremony, designing ad campaigns around Nezirut or creating Ten Plagues theme parks using Minecraft, my students have done it all. My mandate as a teacher is to enable students to access content in a rich, creative way that showcases their unique, creative thinking and knowledge on the topics.
Now You Siyyum…An Exploration into Thematic Jewish Learning
Hillel Day School eighth grade students experience an integrated Judaic Studies learning opportunity as part of their final year at Hillel. Instead of separate Rabbinics and TaNaKh classes, students are guided through classic and modern texts of many genres to explore, thematically, our Hillel Day School core Jewish values. The students are encouraged to explore deeply, and to begin asking the many great questions that arise as they synthesize their developing Jewish identities with our modern world.
My Hero Next Door – Documenting and Preserving The Heroic Life Journeys of Senior Citizens in Virtual Reality
Grade 9 English students at TanenbaumCHAT will create immersive reality / 3D documentaries on the heroic lives of Jewish senior citizens in their community.
Students will also design an app that will serve as an archive, an online film festival and a digital portfolio, featuring Jewish elderly people through the lens of the hero's journey story framework.
The unit, lesson plans and the immersive reality documentary app will be offered to Jewish high schools around the world to create their own films on Jewish seniors, and upload them on the app.
Our ultimate outcome is for the heroic journey of 200,000 Jewish seniors to be archived and shown online in our communities.
Mah Nishtana Goes Tech
Over the course of last school year first graders learned the basics of coding using Scratch Jr. Each lesson in Scratch Jr. also included concepts that were taught elsewhere in the curriculum. The first graders extended their coding skills late last spring by programming our resident robots to travel to a designated spot and ask and answer the Mah Nishtana in the correct order as we had studied in class in preparation for Pesach.
Life Under Shlomo: The Golden Years
Using information gleaned from I Kings 3-8, students designed tourism promotional websites about King Solomon's kingdom. Content areas covered needed to include: his administration and government, cultural sites, testimonials & reviews and a gift shop.
Jewish Heroes Congress
This unit was developed to help students increase their knowledge of mitzvot and virtues and help them be more discerning when choosing people to hold in high esteem.
Intergenerational Oral History Project
Gann 11th graders studied 20th century U.S. history through the stories of Jewish elders. They learned skills in oral history, contextualized the elders' stories in the grander scheme of U.S. history, and developed a final project that applied their learning to their own lives.
Innovations Across the Nations
In conjunction with science and social studies, students learn about real-world problems that affect humankind on a global scale. Students are challenged to think critically and creatively as they plan and engineer products that address the real world problems.
Immigration Fair
I teach the same students 4th grade Texas History and then 5th grade US History the following year. We put on an Immigration Fair for 2-5th grades using what we learned about Immigration into both Galveston and Ellis Island.
Fascism in Megillat Esther
This was a lesson where my history teacher colleague, Barry Kirzner, taught the basic ideas of fascism, and we compared Haman in Megillat Esther to that model. We spoke about the relevance of fascism and of the megillah in modern times and what they mean to us today.
Facilitating Critical Thinking through Reflection and Problem-Solving
I facilitate critical thinking through a steady practice of reflection and problem-solving with my students. I believe that these social and emotional practices help them think creatively about themselves and, ultimately, their learning.
Developing Critical Thinking in a High School Statistics Class
Our submission, “Developing Critical Thinking in a High School Statistics Class,” aims to teach students the necessary tools and help them develop the perspective to critically analyze and evaluate numerical and statistical information. Teaching critical reading and critical thinking and creating opportunities for students to practice and develop these skills are key components of the unit. There are many possibilities for interdisciplinary integration and multi-level adaptations.
Collaborative technology in the classroom: pilot project
In a ground-breaking incorporation of collaborative technology in the classroom, fourth grade boys and seventh grade girls piloted an integrated multi-week project in language arts and history respectively. Students were provided with project guidelines and a bank of iPads and worked in teams to share their findings in an original video using script writing, costuming, set design, acting, videography, and audio-video editing.
American Values in American Texts
Students learned the concept of a value and discussed different American values that exist in society. In groups they extracted various values from certain American texts (such as "The Gettysburg Address") and then connected the values they discerned from the text to values they could infer in a short piece of American fiction. The students had to then devise a lesson plan to teach the short piece of fiction and the value to a high school class. My students presented their work to the class and also wrote individual reflective papers about the entire learning experience.
Alternative Energy Exploration Unit
This integrated writing and science unit focuses on energy, and asks the driving question “How and why should we use energy wisely?” Students investigate what energy is, where it comes from, and how we use it. They conduct research on sustainable fuels, write persuasive essays advocating for the use of a particular source of energy, design billboard advertisements for their chosen energy source, and participate in a debate judged by industry experts on different forms of sustainable energy. Finally, students design and create their own tikkun olam service-learning projects to make a positive difference in our community’s use of energy.
21st Century Personal Mishkan
Students collaborate to design/build a modern, personal Mishkan & furnishings, incorporating motifs, imagery from the ancient Mishkan, and applying wisdom gained from interviews with senior citizens, exploring: "What makes a quality life, and how can we make life better?" Students then return to Senior Center, using their completed designs as springboard for deeper reflection on how to heal after trauma and how to reach our deepest Human potential.
Tanakh Skills Lab
Differentiated instruction suffers from a lack of concrete expression in the high school Judaic Studies classroom. This entry describes an experiment I started in September to create an opportunity for differentiated learning for my Tanakh students at the Fuchs Mizrachi Stark High School. I dedicated one class a week to a skills lab and gave students an opportunity to work independently on a Tanakh skills project of their choice. Accompanying documents and links are numbered in order of suggested viewing.
Risk-Taking and Failure: A Greenhouse for Learning
A cautionary tale of the lure of innovative educational opportunities that not only engage and inspire, but also exemplify our Jewish values and how to best integrate into existing school culture to ensure acceptance and longevity. Our effort led to the near loss of a signature program. The risk was well worth it, the failure a challenge, and the ensuing lessons, invaluable for the program and our school.
Makerspace Failure= Learning
In my K-5 Makerspace classes, students are able to explore, design, engineer, create, collaborate and educate. They are exposed to hundreds of different materials, tools, and supplies ranging from straws, to robotic LittleBits, to broken VCR players. Students are taught, encouraged, and accepting to challenges as learning opportunities and understand that in the Makerspace, there is not failure, only learning.
Magazine of Mishaps: Swimming with Sharks
As a creative extension of their invention/innovation research papers, I challenged my students to create their own inventions and present them in a forum like the TV Show, Shark Tank. I didn't think through all the details, and the project didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. As a result, I learned some important lessons.
Judaic Studies Electives Program
Initiative to revamp, reinvigorate, and reimagine the Judaic Studies Curriculum at Ulpanat Orot by empowering the students to have diverse and personalized choices in their course selections. Ivrit and Torah (Chumash) are mandatory courses throughout HS, but the other 3 JS periods were opened up with 3-4 choices per period.
iPad English Classroom Trial: Challenges, Successes, Discoveries, and Failures
Over the academic year of 2014-5, I embraced the introduction of iPads across the entire SAR High School freshman class by taking certain risks and often failing at integrating the iPad into my already digital curriculum. A record of my efforts were recorded on a public blog that I used as both a record of my “trial run” and a platform for networking with other iPad educators via social media. In my year-long blog, I shared questions, answers, successes, challenges, and yes, even failures regarding the first-year introduction of iPads into my already paperless English classroom. My blog record shows that while I failed at fully integrating the iPad as a media device, and while I failed at fully aligning iPad apps with my already digital curriculum, I succeeded at researching, recognizing, and even demonstrating the iPad’s strengths and challenges in my English classroom.
In Defense of Learning Lishmah
Jewish educators often approach their subjects with the same modalities and grading system that are common in General Studies classes. Rather than continue with this approach, Shalhevet attempted to design two Judaic courses that would devalue letter grades and promote more authentic and deeper student learning. We were willing to take a calculated risk and we failed. While our initial pilot missed the mark, the effort has promoted some benefits and has jumpstarted further innovation in our approach to Judaic instruction.
Computer Lab
Utilizing online computer courses for remedial, standard, and advanced students.
Who is Melvin Bubble?: Using Literacy to Enhance Our 21st Century Skills
The 3rd graders worked on a beginning of the year interdisciplinary assignment as a getting to know you better project. The project combined many 21st century skills, including communication, creativity & innovation, and global awareness. The project centered around the book Who is Melvin Bubble? by author Nick Bruel and culminated with the students getting to understand the real world outside their classroom by meeting Mr. Bruel via Skype!
What is PV? A PBL Odyssey
What is PV? Learn all about it in this six-minute video made by the 6th graders at Lander~Grinspoon Academy. This video is the culmination of a year long Project Based Learning experience on solar power. It was produced utilizing community media at Northampton Community Television.
Voice of Israel
Voice of Israel is a 12th grade multi-leveled Hebrew class where the students design, build and create content to their own live website which enables them to learn and apply their knowledge about Israel all in Hebrew. The goal of the class is to learn Hebrew, to deepen the students’ relationship to Israel and to allow them to engage with a wider audience through real life output. Students were given the opportunity to form affinity discussion groups, and engage in peer review, all while learning Hebrew and gaining knowledge about Israel. The website gives students a real-life platform to express their ideas, and to share their knowledge with the world.
Tza’ar Ba’alei Chayim
Through study of modern ethical dilemmas related to the use of animals in our society, and a cursory dive into traditional texts related to the treatment of animals, students write position papers and debate Lincoln-Douglas style in an attempt to convince peers and parents to act in a manner that aligns solutions to current concerns with ancient wisdom.
Torat Chayim: Real World Learning in Tanach and Gemara; Analysis and Integration through Real World Application
How do we engage students in the rigorous, text based learning of Tanach and Gemara while helping them learn how to apply their learning to their lives and the world around them? A portfolio of sample projects are provided that serve as different models in answering this question. These projects challenge student to extract values, apply and synthesize their learning in various "authentic" ways.
Torah iTextbook Project
The Torah textbook project is a Torah SheBaal Peh curriculum with an emphasis on relating Torah texts (Pesukim, Mishna, Gemara and Halacha) to real world scenarios and situations. Each unit or "sugya" begins with a trigger film or series of articles that promote thinking about topics that are relevant to the lives of students. In addition to the relevance the curriculum includes skill building components which promote self-efficacy in both reading and understanding the logical flow of gemara.
Please note that this curriculum is written for either an iBook (iPad, iMac or iPhone) or online format. The sample below is a .pdf version which is limited to graphics and text.
Thematic Learning of Character Traits Through a Torah Lens
What follows is a thematic unit on Persistence created for our 7th/8th grade Jewish Thought class at Akiba-Schechter Jewish Day School. It is the first in our series of units to deeply examine character traits (or middot) as a means to develop connections between our modern lives and our sacred Jewish texts. After settling on an initial definition of persistence, we studied and discussed examples found in Tanach and various other Jewish and secular sources to help us deepen our understanding and appreciation of this important and esteemed character trait. It is our hope that this creative approach to learning will allow our students to be fully engaged now, but also to reflect and think about these traits and their rich connection to Judaism at different stages in their lives. Future units this year include Heroism, Happiness and Kindness.
The Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital’s (JPDS-NC) Election Project 2016: Kid’s Voices Count
The Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital’s (JPDS-NC) Election Project 2016: Kid’s Voices Count was an interdisciplinary, school-wide project that required the participation of every student and teacher at JPDS-NC. Students from Pre-Kindergarten through Sixth Grade delved into a variety of election issues, met with experts to deepen their understanding, met with and listened to other students in area schools to broaden their perspectives, and reflected on Jewish teachings that relate to the issues in the election. Each grade focused on a different election-related issue connected to their core curriculum, culminating in a Voter’s Guide distributed throughout our community and beyond.
Campaign for a Cause
Working in collaborative teams, the 8th graders run a grade-wide campaign to encourage their peers to vote for their "candidate" (AKA a charitable organization) as the class cause. Through interviews, web-based research and site visits, students develop understandings about their organization in order to create a complete marketing strategy and compose persuasive speeches. Starting with class primaries, continuing with town halls, and eventually by conducting a grade-wide convention, students develop their verbal, written, and graphic communication skills, all while raising awareness about important issues such as homelessness or the refugee crisis.
Bamidbar Values Letter
In what may have been the most rewarding experience of my career, students chose three values learned from Sefer Bamidbar and wrote letters of gratitude to their parents for already helping them learn these values throughout their lives. Simultaneously, parents wrote value letters to their daughters. Parents and daughters exchanged letters on the same day in what ended up being a meaningful and emotional expression of what we hold dearest.
Authentic Service Learning through the Mitzvah Program at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School
The mitzvah program at the Martin J.Gottlieb Day School was first introduced as an integral part of the middle school curriculum 22 years ago. The concept was based on the idea that after students studied Tanach, Jewish laws and customs, they were more likely to understand and accept the mitzvot if given the opportunity to put them into practice. It was also believed that students who became part of their community at large with service projects would grow to understand both their responsibility to the community and their ability to make a difference even at the young age of 11.
6-Week Entrepreneurship makerspace
During this 6 week course, students were exposed to open-ended engineering design and multidisciplinary entrepreneurship in this unique makerspace course. Students with minimal background in STEM and electronics came away with a physical 3d prototype with sensors coded on arduino, a blog/website, initial business analysis, and in many cases an app. These were all created by the students with guidance from students a few years older. Students were given short focused PBL lessons to build their skills in key areas such as electronics, arduino coding, patent law, business development, app design etc. followed up by individualized online learning specific for their projects.
Yochi Paltin’s Ivrit B’Ivrit Hebrew Immersion Program
I have created a positive, thriving, dynamic, ever-changing learning environment for the students in my Upper Elementary Hebrew Language Program (Ivrit B’Ivrit) at Perelman Jewish Day School. Children are encouraged to take risks to converse exclusively in Hebrew. As this is a total immersion program, Hebrew eventually becomes an everyday spoken language—as natural to the students as the English language.
Where the heart feels at home – מקום שלבו חפץ
The Netivot Upper Elementary learning environment is warm, inviting, stimulating, and vibrant like no other. Our classroom setting incorporates collective responsibility, independence, freedom of movement, freedom of choice and peer learning, and utilizes multiple modalities of instruction. This ground-breaking classroom promotes growth in all areas, academic, social, emotional, and spiritual, embodying the adage: אין אדם לומד אלא במקום שלבו חפץ.
The de Toledo High School Media Lab
The Amnon and Ronit Band Media Lab at de Toledo High School is an innovative learning environment which promotes academic, social, emotional, and spiritual growth. Over the last 12 years, the lab has evolved from a basic computer lab to a flexible and creative space designed to serve the varied educational needs of students and teachers in the media arts including: video production, animation, photography, graphic design, and computer science as well as serving the broader school community for instructional support, school and professional development.
Technology… Innovation and Integration featuring the Startup Incubator
The Adelson Educational Campus has constructed a 5000 square feet, state-of-the-art, invention and entrepreneurial workshop: the Startup Incubator. In this space, teachers and mentors work collaboratively with students to employ the design cycle in identifying and tackling real-world challenges, prototyping a wide range of products via coding, digital media, and 3D fabrication. This innovative, interdisciplinary learning environment, paired with school wide one-to-world device deployment and extensive technology professional development, is providing our community a relevant and progressive “Education for Life.”
Schechter Westchester’s MakerSpace
Our Idea Incubator (The INC) is the first MakerSpace built in a Jewish institution in North America. It houses Schechter Westchester’s Engineering and Entrepreneurship (E2) program, in which students take advantage of an innovative, modular learning environment to develop crucial skills such as creativity, collaboration, mechanical and electrical engineering, computer programming, public speaking, confidence, and—most importantly—fearlessness.
Rookies Approach
Ivrit, differentiated instruction, centers, multisensory learning, responsive classroom
Machshava Beit Midrash
Students today are busy, often overwhelmed, and increasingly stressed at school. The Machshava Beit Midrash is a learning environment where students are able to choose from a number of different philosophical and thought provoking books to learn alone or together with a chavruta. In addition, inspirational video and mindfulness training stations allow students to settle and better take control of their thoughts, creating a spiritual and meaningful atmosphere that hopefully permeates beyond the walls of the classroom.
Learning Environment – Jennifer Dolny
My presentation displays the learning environment in my classroom. This learning environment encourages student centered learning and promotes academic, social, and emotional growth.
Innovative Learning in a Flexible Space
Our new innovation studio houses iPad Pros, Chromebooks, a green screen and a 3D printer. We offer flexible seating to accommodate a variety of educational needs, as well as a movable wall so our space can expand as needed.
Hitbodedut as a Learning Environment
This learning environment was first introduced during T'fillah, prayer, time to expose students to an additional, non-traditional way to grow spiritually and emotionally. Students spent time learning about Hitbodedut, and then practicing it on their own for 4 months.
First Grade Flexible Seating Environment
As education shifts to chromebooks, cooperative learning, small group instruction, and personalized learning, so must the classroom furnishing and arrangement. With flexible seating, and no assigned seats, my students are free to sit, stand or lay on the floor as they learn. I have observed increased motivation and engagement as well as a higher rate of student interaction since implementing flexible seating. My first graders are doing their best work ever!
Flexible Seating in The Classroom
I found that by giving students a choice they tend to take more ownership. In the classroom, I wanted them to take ownership in learning. I chose to try flexible seating in the classroom which gave students a chance to have a choice in where/ how they sit while learning. I found by giving students a choice in seating very successful and I found the focus in my classroom to rise.
Co-teaching program
Looking at a classroom, even when empty, tells a lot about the learning environment. Are students facing the same direction to be receivers of information or are there centers and desk-clusters, meeting areas and reading books created to support students in moving through routines, working together, and supporting more independent learning. This later description is the innovative and engaging classroom that is Tovi Admon’s.
Area 251
Our program provides a constructivist based pedagogy that facilitates real world, solution-based, student outcomes. The makerspace provides for a hands-on learning environment that uniquely inspires creativity, invites curiosity and celebrates individual solutions.
A Little Google with a Jewish Twist
Our school has been transformed to replace traditional classrooms with opportunities for project-based learning that emphasizes 21st-century skills in creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication. The physical design facilitates these educational goals, and impacts student-centered learning in increased motivation and achievement. It has put Hillel at the forefront of the paradigm shift in education, wherein student-driven inquiry develops tomorrow's problem-solvers, and gives children the skills they need to inherit their world, and not the factory-model, outmoded 20th-century model of education that no longer aligns with the skills students need in an ever-changing global world, and does so, most importantly, through the context of a Jewish education, which gives them the moral and ethical, values-based foundation they need to navigate a complex world.
A Learning Environment that promotes academic, social, and emotional growth
The best way for students to learn optimally is for them to learn in a physical environment, which meets their diverse needs. It is vital for all children to develop the tools of Executive Functioning in order to discover their own sense of self, intrinsic motivation, self confidence, curiosity and exploration. Students who have the opportunities to develop Executive Functioning Skills are able to succeed in their learning and development, while participating in a learning environment which optimizes success.
“Unity in the School Community”
Jewish Day Schools often face a dichotomy between the Judaic and General Studies Departments. The Jewish Academy is making a priority of tackling this challenge through innovative means. Our goal is to create a seamless curriculum.
The Torah Times, Creative Torah Journalism
"The Torah Times" presents Torah events as "Breaking news" Happening right now! All the text and presentation are developed by Maimonides students, blending Torah knowledge with creativity, humor, writing, and graphic design.
Highly creative, The Torah Times engages students to find the soul /essential messages of the Torah that connects to life & current events today. Protagonists such as Abraham/Lot, Moses/Pharoh, or Aaron/Korach shed their ancient robes and venues to address current issues; Midrash/commentaries become our news outlets with the inside scoop. This personifies Rashi's Translation of the Shma: "Hayom Al Levaech" -not as an old chronicle, but as actual, new, and current.
The Rosh Chodesh Calendar Project
The Rosh Chodesh Calendar project is a two year multiweek integration program which has been successfully incorporated into our school for the past four years. Year one involves integration between the science, technology, art, Ivrit/Hebrew language and Judaic teachers for grade five; year two integrates Humanities, physical education, math/engineering, art and Judaic instruction for grade six/Middle School. Each of the multiweek learning units culminates in a presentation showcasing student individual and class research projects for parents, and occasionally the greater Indianapolis Jewish community
The N.E. Miles Jewish Day School Social Justice and Leadership Initiative
The N.E. Miles Jewish Day School social justice and leadership initiative is guided by the core beliefs and values on which our school is based. To that end, we provide real-life experiences for the students to participate actively in three of the guiding Jewish values- Menschlichkeit, Tikkun Olam, and Torah Study.
The Jewish Academy’s Reflection Integration
Our team integrated the theme of reflection across all grades as well as across all subjects. Reflection is an overall strategy and theme for the school. Laying the groundwork in our first unit is key to a successful year of reflection and revision.
The Gift of Mincha: Drawing From the Text, Building a Siddur
This course addresses the driving question: “How might we improve our school's daily mincha experience through creating an originally drawn, translated, and annotated school siddur?” In this project-driven, team-taught, and inter-disciplinary senior Art/Judaics course, students respond to a very familiar text--the mincha siddur--through contemplative, artistic, and written avenues. Through studying the text in both a critical and soulful manner, and by creating and crafting their own translations, illuminations, commentaries, and illustrations, students are in the process of jointly building a siddur that will be used as the school community's daily mincha text.
Tashlich STEAM Waterfall
This project was planned for grades TK-8 to participate in a school-wide STEAM project to learn about Rosh Hashana, Tikkun Olan, Teshuvah, and Tashlich. The project included integration of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math into Judaic Studies.
STEM Fair
In the spring of 2015, ASHAR students presented their projects in a school wide fair culminating a year long focus on combining the learning of science, math, and Torah.
Based on the premise that everything secular can be found in the Torah, our students in first through eighth grade explored the connections between kodesh, holy, and chol, secular.
Secret Seders during the Spanish Inquisition
Taking advantage of the learning about Pesach throughout the school, I invite my students to travel back in time when Jews risked their lives to fulfill the mitzvah of having a Seder (among other holidays) during the Spanish Inquisition. My Spanish classes apply relevant Spanish vocabulary and grammar that they currently learning to the mock seder scenarios I create for them in a dark, candle lit room with the windows blocked and rotating students on guard for any visitors.
Project GO FORTH: Lech L’Cha: A Cross-Curricular Study of Immigration and Personal Narrative
Project GO FORTH: Lech L’Cha is a multi-faceted, interdisciplinary approach to understanding the immigrant experience in America. Project GO FORTH: Lech L’Cha integrates seventh grade Social Studies, in which students study the history of American immigration, with Language Arts, in which student examine creative writing and sensory language, with Judaic Studies, in which students specifically explore the parsha Lech L’Cha as a lens through which they can understand the spiral of Jewish History with the originating immigrant experience of Avraham.
Philosophical Ethics and the Meeting of Minds
We are delighted to share our entry in the Interdisciplinary Integration category: the “Philosophical Ethics” unit of our junior year Integrated American Literature, Jewish and Western Philosophy course, affectionately referred to as “Tikvah. The unit culminates with the Meeting of Minds project.
Navi and Business
The course is a combination of business, marketing and leadership classed and concepts of Navi. The students start with learning the topic in Navi in depth. We then take out connected business concepts, while making it relevant and practical.
Mishkan Meets Makerspace
In our “Mishkan meets Makerspace” unit of study, we integrated skills from all S.T.E.A.M. disciplines, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics and enhanced our studies of Parshat Trumah by creating our own three dimensional model Mishkan. Using the chumash text as a foundation for purposeful learning, students worked collaboratively to bring the complex details of the Mishkan to life with excitement and passion. The final product incorporated all four learning modalities and six of Gardner’s multiple intelligences enabling each student to experience, engage and conceptualize ideas according to individual learning style and interest.
The Middot Project
The Middot Project blends the emerging wisdom of Positive Psychology with the timeless perspective of Jewish values aimed at a lifetime of meaning and human flourishing.
The Makers Movement @ Kellman Brown Academy
Kellman Brown Academy is committed to the principle that ALL of our students are critical thinkers and problem-solvers. Through introducing the Makers Movement into the culture of the school, students are challenged to "make" what they need to solve real-world problems using their imagination and any materials they can get their hands on. The Makers culture promotes independence, ingenuity, and collaborative work.
Technology Opens Our Musical Minds
At Yeshivat Noam in Paramus NJ the use of iPads and a variety of music apps in our music program has opened up an exciting new world for our students. It has sparked widespread interest on the part of our students to eagerly pursue areas of music not only in our classrooms, but independently out of school.
Sukkah Design and Build Challenge
16 seventh grade students were presented with a real problem -- that MJDS has no Sukkah. Their challenge was to design, prototype, build and decorate a kosher Sukkah in time for Sukkot. The results were stunning; but the process was even more so.
3D Halacha
In this high school Judaic elective class, students learned spatially-related Jewish law while concurrently learning 3D design software. The combination of these two disciplines allowed students to explore difficult Jewish concepts often skipped in day schools, as well as master the incredibly marketable 21st Century skill of 3D design. In this one-year curriculum, 3D software became a powerful tool for empowering students in their Judaic Studies.
Jewish Folktales
The folktale unit is a culminating cross-curricular project for students in fifth grade, integrating Jewish Studies, reading, writing, and public speaking. Students read a variety of Jewish folktales and choose one to study in depth. We strengthened this project by partnering with a local theater company, Wolf Performing Arts Center, to work with the students to present it effectively, analyze the setting and values, and reflect on the morals of the tale.
JEHMS Program- Jewish Education for the Humanities, Math, and Science. Does your Jewish Education Sparkle? Rigorous Middle School Fusion Program to enhance Secular Studies with Jewish Concepts
JEHMS is a middle school fusion program (adaptable for K-12) which employs original, distinctly Jewish lesson plans to communicate required secular concepts, thereby blending secular and Jewish education to better streamline, unify, and integrate Jewish Day School dual curricula. JEHMS is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary curricula in math, science, social studies and English Language Arts, aligned with the Common Core Curriculum, to teach secular skills and knowledge by employing Jewish concepts. JEHMS does not replace Judaic studies, rather is revolutionizes the content of secular classes to seamlessly include Jewish learning as it explicates secular concepts.
JanTerm Integrative Research Project
The JanTerm Integrative Reseach Project is a month-long (in January) intensive project where students learn and practice research and writing skills across content areas. By reconfiguring the students' schedule, students are allowed longer blocks of time to conduct research, write a formal research paper, meet and edit with a mentor-teacher, as well as work on hands-on projects. In this time, our Judaic Studies curriculum works in tandem, guiding the students to study the same theme from a Jewish lens. The students also work on creating a final project that reflects their learning of the Jewish texts and principles related to the overall theme.
Israeli Art Masters
Our multi-modal arts program offers an innovative approach to Jewish arts education which includes our Israeli Art Masters Program. The goal of this program is to weave together the study of fine arts with learning about the Land and history of Israel, appreciation of the Israeli landscape, exploration of Jewish artistic inspiration, the study of Hebrew vocabulary and Positive Discipline Social Emotional Learning. Through this program students have studied various artists from Israel as well as the inspirations and techniques used in their art. In parallel the students compare the color wheel to the Positive Discipline "wheel of choice" which relates the processes of an individual's problem solving decisions to an individual artist's thoughtful artistic choices.
Student Council- Real-World Learning
The Perelman Jewish Day School Student Council inspires real-world learning of civic engagement in our school. The Student Council provides students with opportunities for leadership and ownership of actual student issues. Students have a forum for discussing our school environment and exemplifying good citizenship.
SOLE Student Leadership Seminar
The SOLE Student Leadership Seminar is a full-day, interactive leadership seminar for grades 9-12 which combines real world skill development learned from world experts, with the application of Jewish values in the community.
Students learn from SOLE mentors including Rabbis, Commanders in the IDF, Professors specializing in Israeli Affairs, and other thought leaders in an innovative learning environment called a Self-Organized-Learning Environment or SOLE.
After each keynote, the speakers join the students in small group discussions on how to apply what they just learned from the presentations to their clubs, committees and Israeli-themed projects.
Sinai Akiba Academy New Horizon Day School Exchange
Sinai Akiba Academy, a Jewish day school, partners with New Horizon School, a Muslim day school. Through art, text-study, games, and prayer, students come to see their "buddies," as individuals rather than as members from a faith group.
Shearim Work Study Program
The Shearim Work Study Program is designed for high school students with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Students are given an opportunity to engage with the world, learn important life skills, and derive satisfaction and joy from serving their community.
Realizing Dr. King’s Dream: Facing Choices and Becoming an Upstander
This day, the first in a new school tradition, was structured as a call to action for students and families in a time when action is sorely needed. We hope to give our students the tools they need to to stand up for what is right, like our social justice heroes throughout history have done.
Haggadah Companion
The Haggadah Companion was a collaborative, cumulative project among the Judaic, language arts, art, and technology disciplines. It was designed as a supplement to any Haggadah.
Real-World Learning. A Transformational Approach to Physical Education for Adolescents
As a nurse practitioner and veteran of the fitness industry, I have created a transformational model of physical education for the high school level that is designed to meet the changing dynamics of the "real-world". This program is a response to the rising rates of sedentary lifestyles across all segments of society and its' comorbid sequela on both our physical and mental health. This Real-World model replaces the traditional curricula of physical education programs centered around games and team sports with a model focused on providing students with the education, inspiration, skills, and tools to inculcate a healthy lifestyle while in high school and be well-prepared to maintain such a lifstyle as they transition to adulthood.
Real-World Learning: Experiential Learning Designed and Implemented by Students and Faculty
The office of Student Life at Beth Tfiloh High School has developed beyond cute programming and is now seen as an Educational Department, working alongside all Academic Departments to enhance, collaborate, deepen and apply values, ideas and skills being taught in various disciplines and give them a meeting place of relevance and application through experiential programming. This is a new and exciting way to envision teaching for the Real World and I am excited to share the fruit of the first three years of this experience with you in the hope of inspiring more schools to develop this approach as well.
Fifth Grade Sustainability and Service Learning
Karen Hidalgo has developed a project-based unit on sustainability that has become the hallmark of Austin Jewish Academy’s fifth grade program. It has evolved over the past three years culminating in a service-learning project meaningfully integrated with Jewish studies presenting unique opportunities for students to become real world problem solvers.
Please begin with Text Introduction and proceed to Curriculum Outline.pdf
Real World Judaic Learning
Using this program, students can use their skills in a real-world setting and share their learning with others. Students apply learned skills to create a video of unfamiliar text as a demonstration for other students. The collection of these videos gets posted to a website to compile a student-created Khan Academy for Judaic skills.
Family History Project
Students research the genealogy of their families and present the stories of their ancestors within the historical and cultural context of the Jewish communities they came from.
Project-Based Learning in the Judaic Studies Classroom
The collection of lessons in our submission are examples of how we have applied project-based learning (PBL) to our Mishna and Chumash classes. In addition to having to develop the skills necessary to learn the material on their own, our students learned how to reach out to and share what they had learned with members of the broader school community, the Jewish community, and the global community. This process has brought our students to a greater appreciation of the role of the texts in their daily lives, and of their ability to take initiative in both the learning process and the practical application of what they have learned.
Project-Based Learning at CHDS
As we continue to improve our middle school program, we recently elected to change our learning environment to include more Real-World Learning, based on projects that better motivate students and increase their engagement. This entry describes our accomplishments so far.
Everyone is a Story
Student teams research the life history of an individual outside our school community and interview him/her for both educational and personal growth.
Project Sholom Tools for Happiness
The Project Sholom Message is that Kindness is not only something that we 'learn about', but something that is part of our daily lives.
The Project Sholom Method (catchy phrases, visual aids, role play, songs, stories and activities) give children experiences that drive home the lesson that you can be happy by making others happy. The Project Sholom Tools teach kindness skills, one at a time, in a way that is fun, easy to remember, and relevant.
EVERlab
The 9th grade EVERlab unit focuses on the integration of the concepts, themes and structures from two different courses: Tanach I and Ancient World Civilizations. The unit begins with students brainstorming the overlapping content from eachcourse and moves through scaffolded design, collaboration, and critical thinking exercises in order for students to refine and deepen integrated topics they have chosen themselves. Students ultimately develop projects that demonstrate this integrated thinking.
Electing a School Dugmah
During the 2016 election season, every member of the student body was involved in a mock election. The election was completely student-run and developmentally appropriate for elementary school students. The fifth grade students took the reins on the campaign for a school dugmah(leader/example).
Dreaming with Yaakov to Search for Meaning
Dreaming with Yaakov takes learners on a journey through bibliodrama, geography, social studies, journal writing, archaeology, and art history, visual art, Tanach and Rabbinics, in order to explore what the story of Yaakov has meant to readers over the ages. The ultimate goal of which is to prepare students to see themselves as participants in the Jewish tradition of meaning making.
Comprehensive Digital Citizenship Curriculum
Technology today pervades every facet of life, from the refrigerator to the cell phone. In order, then, to prepare our students for well-integrated lives in the modern world, we must provide them with the psychosocial and emotional vocabulary and awareness to value, build and sustain healthy relationships; the technological skills to choose and use tools responsibly and effectively; and the Torah and Mussar (Jewish tools for self-development) skills to guide and shape their lives in accordance with their Jewish principles. We have developed an expanded, multi-year, cross-departmental curriculum based upon the most up-to-date research and most classical of Torah ethics, that reaches into every part of our educational process, teaching students directly and also via continuing education for staff and parents.
Practicing Real World Skills Through a Revolutionary Service Learning Program
At CCJDS, we teach our children that their words and actions have the power to make change in this world. We believe that as they grow and learn academically, so too should our children explore what it means to make a difference in the world and in the lives of others. Through our school-wide, cross-curriculum SHIR HaLev program, students embark on a yearlong service project in the spirit of the Jewish value of tikkun olam (repairing the world).
Passion Learning for Elementary Schools
Kindergarten through 5th grade students exercise already existing passions or new interests in multi-age/grade elective classes. Electives span such disciplines as sports, computer programming, engineering, robotics, culinary arts, fine arts, the environment, etc...
Parashat HaShavua Class
This course blends technology with traditional text study and shifts the teacher-driven model to a teacher-facilitator and student-driven/project based learning model. Each week, the parasha of the week is studied through unique student creations in which they are challenged to produce content related to the parsha of the week. The students learn new independent skills including Torah research and writing, and collaboration. as well as utilizing powerful digital tools to produce engaging, contemporary, and sophisticated compositions on the weekly parasha.
Non-Fiction Research about Teeth
In this lesson, student use skills learned to navigate non-fiction texts in order to do research and learn facts about teeth. This topic is relevant to first grade students as they often begin losing their baby teeth at this stage of life, and it provides them with the scientific reasoning behind this occurrence.
Nicely Sliced Lunch Business
Our middle school students run a hot lunch business for the students and staff of the school on Fridays, in which they prepare and serve over 100 meals from a menu including grilled sandwiches, soup, salads and pasta. The students manage every aspect of the business, including finances, inventory, customer service, marketing, and vendor relations. The proceeds go to pay for the middle school spring trip, for tsedaka, and other classroom projects. We are on our fourth year of this very successful business.
Mrs. K and the Food Festival
To help students explore real-world uses of decimal arithmetic, and also to encourage team building and creativity, I introduce this 2-part challenge to my Math students. First, in groups, they create thematic pop up restaurants for their classmates. In the second part, each student is given a random guest amount and is directed to calculate total costs for their orders from each restaurant to plan for a catering event.
And There Was Light
This is an interdisciplinary unit, teaching the history of festivals and religions involving light across many cultures. Students were exposed to the symbolism of light in literature and Torah as well as the science of light in creating day and night, seasons and electricity with the creation of lamps in the school's pottery labs. Students learned Tfillot and added the Hallel for Hanukkah the festival of light, as well as created a book demonstrating of all of their learning.
Make for Yourself a Teacher, Find a Friend, Save the World
At Arthur I. Meyer Academy, Jocelyn Weiner used a student driven and created curricular integrative process, inspired by UbD, to create a unit to explore, research, solve, and write informational books about issues of importance in the upcoming presidential election with 18 third graders. The teacher began the unit by using Judaic and Secular text to help guide students to critically think about issues in our country and community.
By using students’ questions, wonderings, and misconceptions, the students and teacher were able to create the unit and lessons needed to solve the problem. The goal was achieved by creating individual books that provided ways to solve the issue, what Jewish text and scholars say about the problem the community was faced with, and a detailed description of the topic (according to credible, secular, age appropriate text).Jenna Sherwood, the other third grade teacher at Meyer Academy, built upon the research students did in reading in order to give a better understanding of timelines in math class
Letters of Admiration
Students reflected upon the unique traits of leaders in Tanakh and wrote letters of recognition to modern-day figures who exemplify these traits.
L’Dor V’Dor: Linking Youth to Elders from the Ground Up
L’Dor V’Dor provides deep one-on-one encounters between students K-6 from Columbus Jewish Day School and Jewish and non-Jewish elders around lifecycle and holiday events. Through carefully planned and facilitated exercises, simulations, and activities, the intergenerational wisdom of elders interacts with the joy of youth among participants aged 6-106, through the use of art, music, text study, guided interactions, prayer, and more.
Knocking Down Classroom Walls
Why should we limit our students to the knowledge of our teachers? By using Skype lessons, we bring in knowledge and experiences to our students that were unavailable to them before. I built learning experiences for our students around Skype lessons.
Israeli Knesset Simulation
The Israeli Knesset Simulation is a combination of live role-playing and online virtual world interaction in which high school seniors immerse themselves in Israeli politics by becoming members of Knesset. By playing a specific character, learning the party platform, and drafting legislation through committee work, the seniors engage in Israel from the inside-out, breaking down the barriers between their education and the real world.
Innovating Real-World Solutions in the Startup Incubator
The Adelson Educational Campus has constructed a 5000 square feet, state-of-the-art, invention and entrepreneurial workshop: the Startup Incubator.
In this space, teachers and mentors from university and industry work collaboratively with students to employ the design cycle in identifying and tackling real-world challenges. Prototyping a wide range of products from mobile apps and digital videos to IoT devices and drones, students ultimately develop not only solutions but lean startups through our relevant and progressive “Education for Life.”
Imagine and Design Lab: Beyond the Classroom Walls
A fifth grade teacher and curriculum coordinator collaborate to develop a science unit. The children learned about inventors and inventions, specifically, how inventors solve real world problems. They designed a new unit incorporating Design Thinking to help students gain real world problem solving skills.
HBHA Upper School Social Justice Project
Imagine an educational experience in which Jewish teenagers have the opportunity to take their classroom learning and direct that knowledge into a course of action that enhances their education and the Greater Kansas City community. This experiential learning is happening at Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, in the form of the Upper School Social Justice Project. I developed and implemented this project - in partnership with peers from an urban charter school, as well as local leaders - which facilitates personal growth and community activism in our students as they address issues such as health care access, voter engagement, and universal early childhood education.
Falling in Love with Breishit
It has been my goal and passion for my students to engage with the Biblical text, to find personal meaning in its wisdom, to wrestle with its many interpretations, and to internalize its messages and values.
Halacha and Technology: An Interdisciplinary, Hands-on Approach
Our senior elective, Merging Halachic Judaism with Modern Life, combines the study of and appreciation of Jewish law with the study of engineering and its principles. In the first half of the year, students learn Hilchot Shabbat and how these laws manifest in modern life. In the second half the year, students work in groups to identify and create a working prototype that merges both Halachic implications and modern technology to enhance the Shabbat experience. Students, thereby, learn to view the latest technological innovations through the prism of a religious perspective.
Government Comes to Us, We Come to Government
Students served as honorary pages in the Maine Senate, lunched and engaged with our senator, and had the mayor of Portland in to class for an intimate session. This led to great desires to be involved in the political process.
Flipped Learning: Promoting Critical and Creative Study of Tanach and Jewish Law
Powered by video instruction and analytics, this 21st century approach to teaching Tanach and Jewish Law helps students master storylines and basic concepts before coming to class. Teachers use repurposed instructional time for higher-order thinking activities (analysis, evaluation and creation), highlighted by a protocol for guided group discussion of Sefer Yehoshua and project-based learning related to the laws of kashrut.
Ancient Egypt
When beginning the study of parshat Shmot, students recall that by the end of sefer Breisheet the Hebrews dwelled in Egypt. We are reminded in the first few verses of Shmot that Jacob and his family made their way to Egypt and that Joseph already resided there. As the story unfolds, a rich understanding text can be gained from learning about ancient Egypt and seeing how its culture and environment impacted the Hebrews.
An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Transcendentalism
Integrated Creative Judaics (ICJ) was a new initiative for interdisciplinary education at de Toledo High School in West Hills, CA. During the 2014-2015 school year, a Media Arts 2 class was paired with a dedicated Judaic Studies class for the entire year. During the second semester, the Media Arts/Judaic Studies joint class entered into a multi-week collaboration with an Honors English 11 class to explore themes of transcendentalism through the lens of the Hebrew prophets and bring learning to life through the Media Arts.
Environmental Education Across the Curriculum: Developing Connected Thinkers For Our Global Future
I teach my students that all of learning and all of life is connected. When we realize connections, we celebrate our
learning. The attached PDF titled Real-World Learning explains how my students learn about the environment and the real world around them by being exposed to connections inside and outside of the classroom and by being encouraged to question and to create ideas.
My presentation begins with the PDF titled Real-World Learning. Thank you!
Fernald School PBL
Students in our 11th grade US History classes researched the Fernald School, a defunct school for students with
disabilities right next door to Gann! They did 2 site visits, developed strong historical questions, and did research in both primary and secondary sources to learn more. Rather than "learning" history, they "did" history, and produced an excellent website documenting their work, which will hopefully be used to lobby the city of Waltham regarding how best to use the site.
8th Grade Integrated Project
The Integrated Project (IP) is a year-long study that spans the curriculum and represents the culmination of the students' K - 8th Grade studies at Mandel JDS. Students choose a theme or topic they want to study and integrate it into each subject within each of the disciplines throughout the year. Through the visual and dramatic arts, and often the performing arts and technology, students bring their fully integrated topics to life in an evening program.
4th Grade PBL: Amusement Parks
Through an interdisciplinary integrated PBL on amusement parks, our 4th graders gain real world experience by
participating in a program to increase their understanding of economics and money systems and applied their knowledge
about supply and demand as well as profit and loss and related it to the project. In all the different subject areas students
experience and participate in different lessons all related to the amusement park. The project presents an opportunity to
build and enhance our students' cooperative learning skills.
6th – 8th Grade PBL: Entrepreneurship Program
This project simulates a real world experience, in the context of an interdisciplinary approach, and helps students finance their 8th grade Israel trip. They are exposed to the basic of money management and investments and learn about different types of investment vehicles and create an investment portfolio. This entrepreneurial program builds the middle school students' critical thinking skills and advanced communication skills, while building creativity.
Circulation: Heart and Lungs
In this units, students will understand the structure and function of the various components of the circulatory system, through didactic and hands-on learning activities. Students will further explore the interaction between the heart and lungs and discuss the impact of their behavior and decisions on their health.
The World We Live In
This interdisciplinary unit explores cultures around the world. It aims to teach students that where one lives affects how they live. We use this big idea to examine Jewish traditions, food, arts, day to day life and more.
The Mishkan Project
This project tasked the students to create a scale model of the mishkan using 3D modeling and printing. Attached to the submission is a google doc with a full explanation with additional materials and references hyperlinked to the doc itself.
Technology Awareness Workshop
This mandatory workshop for the eighth graders is done with small groups of 11-14 girls during lunch semi-weekly. The goal is to educate and discuss the impact that the internet and new technology has on our lives in order to empower the girls to be able to make better, more responsible choices presently and in the future.
3rd Grade Classroom Economy
In 3rd grade my students are active participants in our classroom economy. They earn, spend, & save money. They can distinguish between Needs and Wants. Students created hand made duct tape wallets for money and keep running records of their earnings. Throughout the year my students learn about real life experiences like applying for and managing jobs, the pride one feels when chosen to be the employee of the month, having overhead expenses, and at the same time, trying to save money. We have auctions, garage sales, and many opportunities for students to use their money. This year long initiative teaches my students financial literacy.
Integrated Learning Lab for Junior High History, Language Arts, and Tech Tools Instruction
A first-in-its-class Integrated Learning Lab and Enrichment Option for 6th-8th grade boys and girls was configured for the 2016-17 school year, based upon the successes and lessons learned in earlier pilot studies in 2013-2016 (see, for example other submissions from this school). The goal of this ambitious program is to more fully involve students in the process of discovering, analyzing and engaging with new information, while giving them real-world experience in using the critical-thinking and technological tools imperative for rational, safe and productive interaction with today’s networked world.