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Enabling diverse learners to develop essential Chumash skills
Introduction
21st Century tools enable educators to engage more students than ever before in an
effective and fun fashion. 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-to-one attention
into traditional upper school Judaic Studies.
The Heivanti Method
As a Modern Orthodox Day School, it is our goal at Columbus Torah Academy to
produce lifelong Torah learners. Achieving this goal entails 2 key foci; enabling our
students to independently read and decipher Chumash and its commentaries together
with engendering the sincere desire to do so.
Much effort is invested in thoughtfully constructing the scope-and-sequence and
selecting the best curriculum in order to provide our students with the opportunity to
accomplish this vital goal. On the other side of the equation, however, lies the critical yet
elusive component; the students themselves. How can we assure the highest
percentage possible of student accomplishment?
The following is one approach to differentiation that is uncommonly individualized,
relatively easy to implement and offers unparalleled levels of accountability and
formative feedback.
Differentiation in Both Skills & Comprehension
To ensure every student is receiving the most that they can of what we are providing
them, Heivanti takes advantage of several modalities of learning. Rabbi Netanel Gralla’s
rotational design that he employed Yeshivat HeAtid serves as an exemplary model for
lower school. In efforts to conquer this holy ground in the middle and high school,
Heivanti is the synergy of traditional Torah learning goals and several powerful 21st
Century tools.
The model works with the premise that the ability to read and comprehend our Heritage
from its primary sources is priceless and indispensable. As such, the Heivanti method
endeavors to offer every student the ability to develop the fundamental textual,
analytical and comprehension skills necessary in developing independent, lifelong
learners.
General Program Overview:
DIFFERNTIATED PROCESS
Students are empowered to master the material at their own pace and preferred learning styleThe teacher is availed to offer one-on-one attention
DIFFERENTIATED CONTENT &
SKILL-BUILDING Methodical introduction and mastery of new material and skills through formative and summative assessment Tailored expansion, reinforcement and mastery of fundemental skills through spiraling review
SUPPORTIVE & CHALLENGING
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Regular processing of the storyline, ensuring comprehension through immediate feedbackFacilitating higher-order thinking and affect through creative writing
The Procedure in a Detail
Step 1 - The Lesson:
A typical lesson would develop as follows: the teacher learns the material together with
the whole class. This allows the teacher to provide a hook, solicit penetrating questions
and properly engage the class in the way only possible via a live teacher.
All classrooms begin and progress effectively up to this point. In a standard classroom,
however, most teachers are now faced with an impasse; the top of the class is ready to
move on, the middle of the class could use a thorough review and the bottom of the
class is still working on a basic understanding. This unavoidable need to differentiate
instruction is the opportunity addressed by step 2:
Step 2a - Review & Differentiated Process:
After this learning the selection of
verses or commentary one time
thoroughly, students independently
chose to either review individually,
in pairs or listen to a short
recording of the lesson that is
available on our VoiceThread page
(via headsets and laptops, Chromebooks, smartphones, etc.).
The recording option is most beneficial for the weaker students in the class. They can re-listen to the short lesson as many times as they need until they feel
completely comfortable with the content without having to feel embarrassed or guilty for slowing down the class. The stronger students, on the other hand, can proceed directly to the assessment (see below) rather than waiting unengaged.
Accountability and Formative Feedback:
Regardless of their preferred process and pace, all students are accountable to record
themselves reading the selection on our VoiceThread page. Students that finish earlier
are either provided supplemental work or allowed to begin the homework selection in
class. (Recording themselves on VoiceThread is often the assigned homework.)
With incremental recordings of each student’s reading, fluency and understanding, the
VoiceThread component offers unprecedented evaluation and feedback. One of the
most poignant yet unexpected benefits of VoiceThread is that students and parents can
literally watch their steady progress throughout the year. Comparing the recordings from
September to those in May, students can see in a real and powerful way how much they
progressed over the school year.
Asking students to read out loud is asking them to be vulnerable. To address this
sensitivity, students can opt to keep their VoiceThread recordings private between them
and the teacher. (Parenthetically, the author has found that students have a great time
making their recordings and very much prefer listening to each other. Predominantly,
they make their recordings public and even ask to share them during class time as an
incentive.)
Step 2b - 1-on-1 Attention:
For the duration of the review
component, the entire classroom is
actively engaged. The teacher is now
completely available to offer
personalized attention to individual
students in the form or support,
supplementation or assessment. With
all the differentiation interventions
available to us, nothing will ever
compare to individualized attention.
Devoting personalized attention to
The challenge with individualized
attention is that it usually comes at the
expense of the rest of the class or at
the cost of additional time outside of
the classroom. With Heivanti, teachers
can regularly devote significant time
towards individualized attention in the
classroom without it coming at the
expense of the rest of the class.
each child’s educational needs and the relationships that will result from these regular
meetings are perhaps the most beneficial aspects of this program.
Content Differentiation:
In addition to selecting their preferred modality of learning, teachers can adjust the
amount of material any given student is responsible for. (As mentioned, students can
opt to keep their VoiceThread recordings private between them and the teacher to
prevent any discomfort about their ability or modifications.)
Step 3 - Comprehension
Comprehension is achieved through following 2 processes:
Google Doc Summary (or any online suite alternative):
Students maintain an ongoing summary of the storyline on a Google Doc that is shared
with the teacher. The benefit is twofold:
Students are forced to think broadly and synthesize the verses and commentary
they are learning into a story that actually occurred. Particularly with developing
minds, students translate the verses and commentary but fail to comprehend
what they have read, let alone merge the information into the overall schema.
Composing an ongoing story assures that students digest and formulate isolated
facts into the tapestry of the storyline.
Using an active document platform like Google Docs, the teacher can maintain
an ongoing dialogue with each student, provide formative feedback and prompt
deeper thinking.
Higher Order Thinking
To both broaden and deepen this experience, the summary component of our Chumash
odyssey is brought to life when students create first person narratives of the storyline.
Partially inspired by Rabbi Yosef Deutsch’s “Let My Nation Live” series as well as Gadi
Pollack’s “Desert Diaries”, students are prompted to experience the storyline through
the perspective of a character of their choice. Beyond challenging students to
synthesize the verses and commentary into a seamless story, the first person narrative
brings students into the story. Through expressing the conflict, drama and emotion of
the event through the eyes of their selected character, students experience the narrative
rather than simply mastering factoids.
Engaging the Chumash on this level leads students to higher order thinking, penetrating
questions and stimulates an affective experience. This. as well, is created on a Google
doc to ensure regular formative feedback and an ongoing dialogue.
The first person narrative can be launched in the Chumash classroom alone or brought
to a new level as an interdisciplinary project with the literature department. Through this
creative narrative, students are prompted to stretch their mind and imaginations to
experience the Chumash story in a real way and share that with others.
Spiraling Skill Reinforcement & Quizlet:
Heivanti balances both introducing
students to new skills while reinforcing
and expanding their fundamentals. New
skills are introduced and mastered
through learning and mastering each
new unit of Chumash as described in
the sections above. Fundamental skills
are expanded and reinforced and
mastered through spiraling review, as
detailed below.
This third component of the program focuses on shorashim, techiliot and sofeot (root
words, prefixes and suffixes): A vital piece in reading and deciphering verses is the
ability to identify and translate each part of any given word. This has proven to be the an
eagerly anticipated activity in Heivanti thanks to the website Quizlet and a new feature
called quizlet.live:
Quizlet offers a variety of surprisingly fun and effective formats that enable students to
review independently. Quizlet.live, as sister website, enables students to compete in an
interactive team game that has gained unprecedented popularity here at CTA. The
result is the mastery of hundreds of keywords, prefixes and suffixes using relatively little
class time - all while having a blast!
Along the same lines, salient facts, characters, events and places are included in the
spiraling review. For this the website Kahoot is utilized. Kahoot, as well, has proven to
be a fun and effective way to commit material to memory.
Technical Success
Practice: Heivanti is comprised of several modalities of learning, each with their own
set of procedures and expectations. Planning, practicing and patience is necessary to
allow students to learn the different procedures and get accustomed to transitioning.
Technology: While every app used in this program is free, the program is only feasible
for schools with an up to date IT infrastructure and available technology for every
student (laptops or even Chromebooks are sufficient).
Organization: This program contains a few components. Utilizing an educational suite
platform like Google Classroom or Microsoft OneDrive will simplify the operation.
Areas for Further Expansion & Exploration
The current curriculum is designed to enable the learning and assessment of
skills and comprehension. While affect is stressed through the classroom
discussion and novelization components, a thorough and methodical approach to
ensuring students are achieving affective goals is beyond the scope of this
model.
Torah is absolutely infinite. The types of tools described above are powerful and
dynamic. The possibilities latent in an applying these tools to our Holy Torah are
endless.
This is a format that can easily be utilized for other text based Judaic courses like
Gemara and Navi. When adapting to other Judaic disciplines, the fundamental
goals of each course should inform the adjustments to the model.
Conclusion
While the general goals of our Judaic Studies courses have not changed, the means to
achieving them have. By utilizing the right balance of classroom, one-to-one attention,
and carefully selected technology, students benefit from both increased one-on-one
attention together with unmatched personalized learning.
There can be no more noble nor vital task than developing the next generation of Torah
learners and lovers. As Torah educators, it is incumbent upon us to utilize the most
powerful and effective tools available to us to achieve this sacred goal. It is my prayer
that the effort and creativity invested in the Heivanti method promote further innovations
and progress in this most Holy endeavor.
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