PEP Alumni Fall Retreat Draws 46 Pardes Alumni

The first joint conference of Pardes and DeLet alumni was held at the Pearlstone Retreat Center in Reisterstown, MD with forty-six of our alumni in attendance. The day before the retreat brought a good deal of rain to the area, but the weather smiled on the actual retreat and the fall foliage was truly amazing - for those who made it outdoors!

The conference had a similar format to past retreats, with workshops, sharing sessions, time for reflection, Torah lishma, and a "Pardes" Shabbat with all that entails. Many alumni contributed to the success of the conference by either serving on a planning committee, presenting an innovative strategy, giving a workshop, facilitating sessions, or taking on ritual or other responsibilities.

David Bernstein, Zvi Hirschfield, Judy Markose and Susan Wall came from Israel to teach and spend time with our alumni. Amanda Pogany, the new Associate Director of the Alumni Support Project was instrumental in planning the retreat, and through workshops and individual meetings was able to share her expertise with many veteran and novice teachers.

It was most gratifying to have Marc Baker, Cohort 1, deliver the plenary address and lead a number of sessions for administrators. In the plenary, Marc spoke about two very different models of teaching that we find in our tradition. Click here to see the power-point of his address. The questions he raised helped to frame other sessions and gave the participants much to think about regarding their own teaching.

The addition of the DeLeT alumni expanded the pool of experience, and their staff and senior alumni led a number of thought-provoking sessions. The foundation was laid for some important new relationships and networking.

We have started to process the written and oral feedback and appreciate your honest and insightful comments as we begin to plan for next year's program. The Conference website, which includes handouts from the various sessions, is still available for your perusal.

"In this class, we are never finished. Learning is a process that never ends."

Carol Ann Tomlinson

Anchor Activities are designed for students to work on once their class work is completed. The intention is to maximize instructional time and deal with the challenge of different students completing their work at different times. Anchor activities are intended to review or extend learning of the subject matter, not to be busy-work. Activities may be designed for students to complete on their own or in small groups. The goal is to have students move independently to the next task.

Ideally, you can set up an area for anchor activities in your classroom that students know how to use. It is intended as low prep DI (differentiated instruction) strategy. Try to stock your anchor activity center with a series of ongoing projects, so that you don't have to work on it regularly.

You may choose to assign particular students to specific tasks or allow them to choose, when appropriate. All tasks should be relevant to the concepts being developed in class, but some may be more complex than others; there are times when students need the opportunity to do something that is low-stress and less demanding.

For resources and other ideas click here.

During our visits to schools, we have observed various teaching strategies worth sharing. Following is a tool Stephen Belsky (Cohort 4) used with his eighth grade students at Akiva Hebrew Day School, Southfield, MI.

Stephen wanted his students to translate a list of words that would appear in the upcoming section of a text. He wrote the words out so that each student received a copy of the list. Students were given about a minute to fill in as many words as they knew and could translate within the time limit. At the end of the time, they passed their papers on to someone else and the process was repeated. Students were allowed to correct their colleagues' work. This was repeated three times, with the sheet eventually going back to the first person who filled it out.

The advantage of this activity was that every student contributed what they knew. No one finished too quickly and no one was left lagging behind, as they each contributed what they could to every sheet they were given. Those who knew less, benefited from the knowledge of their classmates in a way that no one was embarrassed. Stephen went over the list with them to make sure that each left with a correct sheet.

We invite all our graduates of Cohorts 8 and 9 (and any others who are entering their second or third years in the classroom) to join us for this summer's Curriculum Workshop to be held in Jerusalem from July 17-August 2, 2011 (17 Tammuz-2 Av, 5771). Others in their first few years of teaching who were unable to take advantage of a SCW previously, may apply to join this session. There are a limited number of spots for participants this summer, so please respond in a timely fashion to our request to know if you are planning to join us.

For those who attended last summer we will not be providing core workshops for all, but will return to our prior model with more time available to work with mentors on one's own goals and a choice of all workshops. Each participant will be responsible for presenting a curricular outline for at least one course.

If you have a colleague in your school whom you would want to recommend for the 2011 Summer Curriculum Workshop, let us know. We will only be taking in a handful of non-Pardes graduates.

We have sixteen experienced PEP graduates who have made the commitment to be part of the Tefillah Action Research Project for this year. Each participant will be introducing a change in the format, content, or goals of some aspect of their school's tefillah, followed by research on the impact of that initiative. Those participating in the project are assigned to small groups that will 'meet' monthly via phone/web conferencing to share the progress of their research.

We hope to learn more about what could improve our schools' tefillah curriculum and share the findings both within our Pardes network and with colleagues in the day school field.

Drs. Ezra Kopelowitz and Stephen Markowitz have been interviewing a sampling of our ninety-nine alumni to learn more about the experiences of new teachers and the needs of both our novice and more veteran alumni. We hope that those of you who have been contacted will be willing to honestly share your journeys and insights so as to both inform our work in the alumni support project and to add to the understanding of the broader field for the Jim Joseph Foundation. Please respond in a timely fashion.

Day schools and supplemental schools and teachers working in Jewish education are eligible to win SMARTBoards, a trip to Israel, gift certificates, personality appearances and many other exciting prizes. Prizes will be awarded for the submission of qualified SMARTBoard lessons.

Gemara Berura, is a (computer-assisted) skills-based approach to teaching Talmud (Mishna and Gemara). It allows teachers to focus not only on the contents of the piece of Talmud at hand, but to expose their students to the inner methodology of Talmudic reasoning. You can download the Pilot Hascholas Gemara curriculum prototype student workbook on Tfillas Hashachar.