2009 Kallah Follow Up Deep Learning Resources

The theme of our Kallah was "Engaging Learners through Deep Learning."  The Kallah Follow-Up Committee met to brainstorm a number of strategies that can extend this theme into the year; strategies that can be used during staff meetings and on-site workshops to model examples of engagement activities leading to deeper, more meaningful learning.

The following posting is the beginning of a series of activities and resources we will be posting to this site for you to use with your staff as a training component at future staff meetings. You can download and modify/personalize it so your staff can use it for future planning when constructing learning experiences

Research demonstrates that there is a world of difference between "learning about" and "doing."  This holds true for teacher training as well as for teaching children.  There is also a threshold at which a new idea or skill is "owned" by the learner, usually after a cycle of demonstration, practice, and rehearsal.  For this reason, we suggest that all of these resources be embedded in the following framework:

FRAMING:
An introduction by the education director or workshop leader that reviews the key definitions from Kallah 5770 (Appendix A). You may want to answer the teaser questions under each definition, and relate them to planning future learning experiences.

STRATEGY OVERVIEW:
Explain the particular strategy that will be demonstrated and how it adds to engagement or deep learning.  You may also give a few general illustrations of where in your particular curriculum the strategy may be placed.

FIRST DEMONSTRATION:
A first demonstration of the strategy with your faculty as themselves  (i.e. as adult learners).  A debriefing then focuses on the skills and goals.

SECOND DEMONSTRATION:
A second demonstration of the strategy, this time the educators should take the role of their students, thinking about how motivation, content, and language need to be modified to be appropriate for the students' developmental stage.  Another debriefing, perhaps in broad grade groupings should follow.

STRATEGY REVIEW:
A final summary of the strategy and goals, with any comments from staff.  The education director should then choose a few faculty members with whom to do a supervisory follow-up, using a clinical supervision model to help the teacher master the skill in the real learning environment.

Staff Activities

1.  "A Jewish Chain Letter" – A staff meeting icebreaker activity using one of the Talmud templates distributed before Kallah (Appendix B) The template uses a text from Joel Grishaver's Teaching Jewishly to facilitate a staff discussion on relationships in the classroom.  If there are participants who are not familiar with the traditional Talmud page, give out the “Absolute Talmud” example in the appendix, and point to the core text with the commentaries along the side.
The activity should be done in groups of 4, and illustrates how material from a linear text may be re-shaped to become interactive and a source of building a classroom community.  This text study using personal responses from chevruta partners can also illustrate how deep learning takes place.  Grishaver's book should provide many great staff discussions on the primary role relationships play in an effective learning environment.

2.  Two activities for your staff based around Purim themes. (can be used pre or post holiday)
a.  Ice breaker or post-unit energizer – Two Circles activity that exposes the learner to a few of the enduring understandings from the Purim story, and lets them personalize meaning through the interview questions posed to their circle partner.  This specific Two Circles activity is adapted from an exercise by Rabbi Goldie Milgram, in her book Reclaiming Judaism as a Spiritual Practice from Jewish Lights publishing company.  After the activity, do reflection together as a staff so that educators get used to doing reflection with their individual groups.  Give them the handout from Bernie Reisman's The Experiential Handbook (Appendix C) so that they can use this activity in many different ways.

b.  Purim -  UBD Lesson Planning activity (can be used for most holidays) – The pre-requisite for effectively planning a meaningful learning experience is a clear understanding of the "big ideas" you are trying to teach from the subject. A number of related topics may be introduced to your staff that all sharpen an educator’s skill at teasing out important parts of an assigned topic.  The resources attached in Appendix D include:

1.  Lesson plan – Jewish Classroom Planner- 5769
2.  UBD Overview – Partnership’s Commendation Manual
3.  Template – Details and Main Idea
4.  Template – Establishing Curricular Priorities
5.  Purim Themes Chart

The following activity will help staff tease out Enduring Understandings from the Purim story.  It facilitates deep learning in that a learner must go from the text (usually seen as a linear story), and see the text as “evidence” for Jewish themes in history.  Then the learner will be asked to do research and personalization of the themes.  It also illustrates how engagement is more attainable when the lesson reflects on the learner’s life in more global terms.

I.  Review the linear story of Purim as recorded in the Book of Esther.  Then hand out the chart – Purim - A Celebration of Jewish Survival – Guide your staff to look at the typical way we teach Purim and build celebration skills, compared to the Purim themes highlighted by the chart:

1.  Identity,
2.  Response to Authority and
3.  Status of Jews in the Galut (diaspora)

II.  Ask them to take notes on these themes using Details + Main Idea (Appendix “D5") – Why is exploring one’s identity important? How do our families see the variety of their identities? (Americans, Citizens of a state or county, children, siblings, team/club members, Jews..) How does each identity bring value to their lives? Are they especially loyal to a particular identity?  Does that loyalty translate into time/money spent doing things to strengthen that segment of their identity?  Where does “being Jewish” rank?

Make sure that they take notes in terms of age/stage of their group.  They should think about our families’ lives in America, and their students’ response to authority, constitutional freedoms, and "comfort" of their hyphenated American-Jewish identity.

III.  Divide teachers into groups by grades they teach and have each group plan a follow-up lesson after Purim - age appropriate for their students using the template labeled Establishing Curricular Priorities (Appendix “D6”).  The themes of Purim are too important to review ONCE a year- and the seriousness of the ideas may get lost in carnivals and costumes.  As an “Enduring Understanding,” the duality of OPEN vs HIDDEN identities in Diaspora communities should be discussed throughout the year.
 
Think of a lesson to be inserted before Pesach or Yom Ha’atzmaut that asks students to assess their identities- personal, family, community, as team/club members, etc.  
Make sure that the lesson reflects activities that will help your chosen main idea(s) stick with your students. The lesson may stick more if it contains

a.  activities that are multi-sensory – hear, see, touch, taste
b.  a pneumonic device to help participants remember what they experienced
c.  repetition of main idea;  personalized into an illustrative story by teacher

IV.  Debrief Activity – integrating the following components:
a.  Do the celebrations and rituals of Purim help us understand the important themes and ideas- if not, what new rituals can we create? How do other holidays explore our identities as humans, Americans, and Jews?  Are the “Jewish values” we learn about applicable to more than one identity?
b.  Explain to the participants that the exercises that they have just completed illustrate planning using Understanding by Design, and can be used for every topic and holiday.
c.  Engagement – using the templates that they just used

1.  How would this template work for a future lesson?
2.  What kind of deeper learning could be attained by working from the student's life circumstance to the Jewish framework?
3.  How could you apply them to other subject areas?
4.  Using the Detail- Main Idea template teaches the "real-life skill" that all students and literate citizens need to master, i.e. the
ability to develop main ideas and topic sentences from sets of detailed data.