Reflective Questions:

Which things did you learn from the curriculum, teacher/liaison vision and which from the context (school culture)? How were these similar or different?

There is a definite sense of the importance of Eretz Yisrael and Torah, both in allegiance to text and values. The high priority placed on Hebrew language is felt both in the curriculum and the liaison’s words and as well is felt in the culture and the student’s thoughts. I think that the students feel that there is more of a presence of G-d in their experience than is apparent in the curriculum or understood by the liaison. From my perspective, G-d is not openly discussed, unless a teacher, such as my mentor, and the eighth grade interviewee’s teacher, brings it up. I feel that the biggest discrepancy is how the students and the community feel that ‘Am Yisrael” is expressed. Many students of different backgrounds populate their school, but curriculum only addresses the differences in one or two grade levels, and when they do they are established as being different. Considering the immense amount of teasing that is done in the middle school and upper grades of the elementary school based solely on ethnic difference, more work needs to be done to not only teach about other Jews, but also stress the common bond of Yisrael.

Which of the things in the “school community” category are explicitly teaching students? How could they be made more explicit? Which are most prominent? Why?

Tikkun Olam is handled extremely well in expressing the need for students to reshape the world around them. Some work could be down to directly tie Jewish concepts of redemption to this work. The Magen and Hebrew immersion programs, directly teach children the value of Eretz Yisroel and make explicit this aim. However, the holiday celebrations, prayer services and torah study, do not always express in any depth how this reflects our relationship to G-d and the different ways to understand G-d. More could also be done to tie the study of Torah to the practice of a Jewish life. Sometimes we study Jewish practice, but study it as an “ancient” text and don’t see its relevance to our lives beyond its values.

Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “What Jewish education needs is not more textbooks, it needs text-people.” How can you be that text-person who students will read as a text of what it means to be Jewish, to be the kind of person that they will be inspired by and aspire to be?

As my eighth grade interviewee said very wisely, “teachers act with integrity.” We must have integrity in how we behave, in how we learn, in we teach, in how we relate to others. We must be honest about our relationship to Judaism, in both belief and practice. As a “text-person” we must always be expanding our text and be willing to create new commentaries on how and why we do things. It is important to be transparent about our choices and willing to discuss with students the reasons why we do things, and understand the context in which we are living. We also must realize how much they are learning from us in every moment. There will be times that our “text” will be confusing and befuddling, and we must be honest with our students that we are not perfect and that they sometimes must interpret as they may.

Final thoughts – How can you make the Jewish commonplaces more explicit in your behavior, your classroom and your school?

We must do our best to be aware of our choices in what we teach, how we broach topics, frame issues, and react to questions posed to us by our students. You must also engage students in discussions around certain behaviors, activities, events both in the school and out, and life experiences and then relate them to the commonplaces. We must find ways to integrate into both the Judaic and General studies curriculum the commonplaces and focus on how these commonplaces are related to everything we study and do. We must also do a better job educating the entire faculty and staff so that they are knowledgeable about these commonplaces and how they relate to everything the school does. I would spend as much time on Judaic development as is done for professional development.

The Integration Reflection

Students
Allowed students an opportunity to draw connection between what they do as Jews and how it affects their lives and the world around us. It also allowed them to see connections between science and torah and.
The students had a basic knowledge of kosher and of animals, but learning about them more deeply was exciting for them because they felt empowered by know about these subjects with added depth and breadth.
The students enjoyed the freedom this unit provided to discuss Judaism, G-d, the mitzvot in a General Studies class, with their General Studies teachers and weren't ashamed to share their Judaic knowledge while talking about science.

Curriculum
The curriculum in 2nd grade doesn't really afford for science, let along Judaism, to be taught. There were very few resources available for texts, games, books that provided an integrated approach to this topic. Because of this, I had to create my own materials, which consumed a lot of time and energy. What was great about integration was that it order to have a most active integration the students must be taught in a understanding focused approached. By utilizing the UBD principles I was able to utilize a more effective integrative lesson. I also feel that this prevented a coverage approach. Integration also allowed for a unit that depended on student reflection about what they were learning and how they were learning it.

Mentor
My mentor said that she really enjoyed this unit. She has made attempts herself to create an integration unit by discussing tikkun olam about Tzar Balai Chaim. However, this unit of hers doesn't allow for comparison between Torah's approach to the treatment of animals and our society's our science's. My mentor does recognize the increased possibilities inherent in teaching student through integration, but questions how to continue to fit in integration lessons while still maintaining coverage of the necessary textbooks and activities already embedded in the curriculum.

Me and My Teaching
I really enjoyed teaching this lesson. It was difficult to find a true balance between the science component and the Torah component of the unit. I realize that the authentic assessment becomes extremely important in ensuring that the students draw true connections between the two integrated components. The best way to do so would be to create an aspect of the workshop that would promote student reflection about the way that each of these areas of knowledge impact their lives and how understanding how they relate to each will allow them to act further. The reflection that occurs during the unit must be done through active exercises and not just class discussion.

Another aspect of integration that was exciting for me was how much teaching this unit forced me to know the content so much more thoroughly than I did before. Teaching the unit also made me draw new connections between Torah and Science and how I use both. This occurred both because of the ideas that the students developed and also while actually teaching I realized that there are so many ways to see these ideas.

Planning for Inquiry

1. What are my concerns about planning and teaching my integrated unit?

I have two larnge concerns going in. One is that I am not sure how to plan for second graders. I have gotten an idea of what works for eighth graders and how to assess them while I am teaching. I feel like I have to twist my brain around and start thinking first of all how we assess second graders to begin with, and how we plan activities and then figure out ways to merge them. I am really not sure how to plan lessons around a concept for second grade which is normally planned around the education of skills or if not, around reading. My second concern has to do with finding ways to to integrate my unit into the preestablished curricullum. I am not sure what to do if there aren't preexsiting stories in the literature book, or math lessons or science classes that relate directly to my unit.

2. How will I approach/address these?

I realize that I need to approach my mentor and really work with her on this project. This is problematic because she already feels she spends too much time at school to begin with, but I hope she will do this for me. I want to talk to her about various forms of assessment she currently uses. I have to turly discover what I want to assess and what might be the best methods to do that will be. I need to work with her on looking at the curricullum and figuring out a way to use what is there in my unit.

My mentor, My unit and I

1. As I plan and teach my unit, which aspects of it follow the guidelines and style of my mentor and which are my own ideas and choices?
the structure of the class and how much time is given to Chavrutah learning. I changed how the students are assessed and how points are assigned and how and when they are provided with their work. I also am asking more of the students in terms of providing their own ideas and letting the class direction move forward based on their ideas. I am also focusing less in both instruction and assessment on grammar and vocabulary than my teacher, which may not make her happy.
2. How did I arrive at this decision?
I wanted to make sure they students were focusing their energies on ideas that would lead to the EU and did not want to get bogged down by grades and vocab.

3. How has my mentor responded?
We shall see. So far very supportive.

4. What have I learned about myself and learning to teach?
I need a lot more work on classroom management. I have to be very clear about instructors with students, because they are unfamiliar with my methods and forms of assessment. I also realize how much I love teaching this material. My combination of content knowledge and passion for sharing it allows me the energy to not only find interesting ways to structure my unit and lessons, but also the will to deliver it in the face of sometimes resistant students.

Assessments in Tanach

What kinds of assessments have you seen in your classroom? What was their purpose? What might you learn from them?(think of the three concentric circles of EU; something worth knowing; something worth being familiar with) -tests, worksheets, essays, discussions, interpretive art, write your own stories, write a response. Most of it is stuff work knowing. Only a small part requires the students to enter the enduring understanding realm, like essays that ask them to reflect on larger issues of the text. Some projects could access the EU if the students weren't prompted so much and provided with most of the information. There was a project, called interpretive midrash that asked the students to interpret some aspect of what it meant to be a prophet based on one of the texts we discussed in the class and then to reflect and share their artistic choices.

UBD and Me

What are the most challenging aspects of the UbD design model for me so far?
I am having trouble clearly defining what my EU and EQ are. I want to understand what assessments work better at what stage of the learning.

What are the challenges in articulating and framing a big idea? (think about our Hanukah discussion!) How to make it clear and concise and yet be broad enough to encapsulate a big idea that can be transferable.

Can I see what the big ideas are in the curriculum in my classroom? Why or why not?
I can see them when I look hard enough or look at the central ideas exposed in the various topics (books) discussed.

Curriculum Panel Response

I found the curriculum panel compelling in that it brought together people from such different subject areas, but all of them had the same objectives in mind. I was especially interested in what Rabbi Ed Horowitz had to say about the nature of teaching text for the purpose of content or for the purpose of developing skills. I have always wanted to develop a teaching style where all teaching was built around some type of text, but I also was interested in a blend of both skills and content. I believe that content is necessary for the engagement of the student. This also seems necessary for the students to be willing to ingrain themselves within the difficult task of learning new skills. If we are only concerned with developing skills, what motivation do we give to students to actually use those skills later on?

I do admit that I approach Jewish text study differently than math, science or social studies. While the study of all of those serve utilitarian purposes that are extremely valuable to the students’ future. I am as concerned or even more concerned with the students’ future. For all the obvious benefits of the fact that involvement in Judaism helps someone be a better person, but also because it seems integral to the students interest in engaging life as a Jew that they appreciate what it means to be a Jew. The engagement in text, and thus the need for the skills to do so, is the most accessible way for these students to be able to engage long term with this tradition. An ability to handle the texts and appreciate their value will allow the students the ability to discuss debate and decide thoughtfully how they might engage as Jews in an intellectual honest way. None of this will ever be able to happen if as teachers of Jewish texts we don't inspire them. This can't necessarily be done by teaching them how to read Rashi script, or how to make use of a Gezeras Shava, or how to find a Halacha in the Tur or the Mishne Torah. Also, if we teach texts only to teach the skills, how does one reach those students not interested in engaging with the texts directly, or without the learning abilities to do so? We most broaden our approach so that is not one or the other. Both approaches are integral to the development of the Jewish student.

The next issue to be resolved is how to integrate studies. Obvious opportunities evolve out of the connections between the subjects' content areas. The teachers acknowledged the need for time to create specific projects that allow for integration. As schools expect more and more specialists to handle subject areas, the more teachers to have to pull together to get these projects off the ground. The question becomes whether a school wide effort to develop curriculum specifically around integrated curriculum and to hire teachers who are capable individually to educate to this objective. As someone who is especially interested in developing a curriculum that uses as its foundation Judaic learning, I would like to explore how to teach Judaism while still developing the skill sets used in math, reading, writing, historical analysis, etc. I want to explore how it may be possible to still expose the students to the content that has been used in the past to teach the General studies subjects, but in a way that can still be used in conjunction with Judaism. I hope that I have other opportunities to explore these concepts with other educators in the future.