Learn the 13 Principles of the Rambam in under 5 minutes

The Problem - we are all ignorant

How many times have you read a Jewish periodical that bemoans how little our students know  about the fundamentals of our faith? These articles will extol the virtues of kiruv programs that teach these ideals to our students in a workshop or two. They quote students who were astounded. "How come I never learned this before?," the students ask.

This problem has been on my mind for quite some time. When I started to teach 3rd grade, I decided to try teaching the basics of our faith on a 9 year old level. I began devoting 5-10 minutes each day using one tefillah as a spring board to explain our beliefs.

Right before I was about to teach Yigdal, which outlines the 13 Principles of Faith of the Rambam, a new article in the HaModia caught my eye. In it, the author challenged Orthodox Jews to name the 13 Principles of the Rambam. The 13 Principles of the Rambam is a list of philosophical truths  that all Orthodox Jews share.  The author questioned how many of Orthodox Jews can name all 13 by heart. If it were so important, he posited, we would know all all of them yet most of us don't.

Finding a solution so we can all learn

I finally had enough. Instead of assigning nefarious motives to  schools and adults for neglecting these very important ideas, it was time to recognize the problem.

Who can memorize 13 of anything? Had the Rambam decided that there were 7 principles of faith, we would have been fine. We can all memorize phone numbers after all.

But 13??? We don't have a fighting chance. Unfortunately for us, the Rambam actually had 13 ideas that we all agree to as Orthodox Jews. It would be hard to cut out 6 just to make it easier to remember.

So, once I realized that the problem is not the lack of desire, but the limits of our memory, I set out to solve the problem.  

Chunking 

A few principles of cognitive psychology came to mind. 

First is the concept of chunking.  It is very hard to remember a list longer than 7. If I divide the long list into smaller groups, it becomes much easier to remember. 

Remembering a list of 13 is almost impossible. However, 3 groups of 4 is doable. Luckily the Rambam's 13 principles has been chunked into 3 broad categories by people far greater than I. Teaching these chunks was step 1 in the universal awareness of the 13 Principles of the Rambam.

Symbols 

Second - who learns with words anymore?

Take a look at the following pictures. How many of them do you recognize? Can you explain what each one means and where you might see it?

 

We could have probably have  conversations  about each of these simple pictures for quite some time. The reason is that these pictures have meaning to us and are stored differently in our mind than words are. The images arouse both emotional and intellectual responses and trigger huge amounts of information stored in our mind.

The authors of  the book "Classroom Instruction that Works" 2nd edition, devote a a full chapter to the importance of imagery in promoting memory and understanding. "Psychologists believe that information is stored in memory in two ways: as words (linguistic) and as images (nonlinguistic) (p 63). 

Simple pictures make us remember things in a different way than words do. Images not only help us remember concrete things, but also help deepen our understanding of abstract ideas. Just as important, the images help us problem solve and analyze complex issues.

I decided that in addition to chunking, I would make a simple icon, a symbol,  for each of the 13 Principles. This graphic needed to be as simple as possible so it could be  stored in our memory as a single word image and retrieved easily. 

Test yourself

Before I show you the results of my work, try it out for yourself. Here is a list of the 13 Principles of Faith in order. Study them for a 1 1/2 minutes and then see how many you can recall with your eyes closed.

1.  G-d exists 

2.  He is One 

3.  He has no body 

4. He is eternal 

5. All prayers go to Him and not to an intermediary.

6. G-d speaks to man through prophecy. 

7. Moshe was the father of all prophets

8. Moshe gave a True Torah at Har Sinai
9. the Torah will never be changed.

10. G-d knows all

11. G-d rewards the good and punishes the bad
12. Moshiach will come
13. There will be the resurrection of the dead

 So what was your score? ______/13 

Chunking

Now lets see how many you can remember after we chunk the information.

Study each list for thirty seconds, and try to test your memory after you study each section for 30 seconds. Then at the end, test how many you can remember in total.

G-d

1.  G-d exists 

2.  He is One 

3.  He has no body 

4. He is eternal 

5. All prayers go to Him and not to an intermediary.

The Torah of Moshe

6. G-d speaks to man through prophecy. 

7. Moshe was the father of all prophets

8. Moshe gave a True Torah at Har Sinai
9. the Torah will never be changed.

Reward and Punishment

10. G-d knows all 11. G-d rewards the good and punishes the bad

12. Moshiach will come
13. There will be the resurrection of the dead

 So what was your score this time? ______/13 

Symbols

Now lets see how images help us remember. Again study each list for 30 seconds, this time with its accompanying picture. After studying each section, test yourself on that section. At the end, test yourself on all of them.

Section 1: G-d 

1.  G-d exists

2.  He is One

3.  He has no body

4. He is eternal

5. All prayers go to Him and not to an intermediary.

Section 2: The Torah of Moshe

6. G-d speaks to man through prophecy.

7. Moshe was the father of all prophets

8. Moshe gave a True Torah at Har Sinai

9. the Torah will never be changed.










Section 3: Reward and Punishment

10. G-d knows all

11. G-d rewards the good and punishes the bad

12. Moshiach will come

13. There will be the resurrection of the dead

 So what was your score this time? ______/13 

Did the chunking make a difference?

Did you feel like it was easier to learn it with the pictures? 

I tried these graphics out with my students and with adults and the learning was more enjoyable and memorable than a long 40 minute lesson would have been.

Putting it all together - The Final Poster

I didn't want to just make three separate posters, because all thirteen principles are part of our singular belief. So I put all 13 back together into one big poster.  I hope this poster that represents our faith and our beliefs helps everyone  learn what it means to be an Orthodox Jew.

I hope that it can promote Jewish literacy in a pleasant and fun way so that we can all learn that which is  important to us.

Happy Learning!

ITL: Perek 12: pesukim 10-20

My Last Class for the Introduction to Independent Learning.  It was an awesome experience. Thank you to all who participated!

Reflections on teaching the class

Online Resources for the Unit

Pronouns

Game for reviewing pronouns

Nouns

Verbs

Using cantillation (trop) to break up the pesukim and translation

Analyzing the theme of the pesukim

ITL: Perek 12: 6-9

Vocabulary for Learning this Unit

Finding punctuation in Chumash 

Analyzing the theme of the pesukim

Reflections on creating my first blended learning course

Today, I finished my 8th class in Introduction to Independent Torah Learning that was a blended learning course with both a live and online component.  Here are some of my reflections about my first go at this kind of course design.

Background: 


Separating the gap between the Can's and the Cannot's in Torah Learning

I began teaching Chumash in 2001. Every year, there were two kinds of students in a class - those who could translate pesukim independently and those who could not. The more I taught, the more these distinctions became clear. I began to wonder how to give students who could not translate independently the tools so they could do so and match their Judaic achievements to their secular ones.

Bridging the divide in high school - When I moved to Rochester, I began teaching in a high school with only 15 students. My chumash classes became a perfect laboratory for action research. With only 15 students in a class, it is possible to really collaborate with the students. They helped me refine my teaching by giving me a lot of feedback (one assessment tool I used). Through their feedback, and constant data mining, I developed the ITL (independent Torah Learning) system  based on the theory of the Zone of Proximal Development and constructivisim to teach all students how to translate pesukim.

Teaching it right in elementary school - A few years ago, I began to teach third graders. Teaching this age was very instructive for refining my system  because they haven't yet learned how to learn incorrectly. There is nothing to unteach.  Moreover, because third graders are  concrete learners and because I could collaborate with the math and ELA teacher, I was able to create materials for different kinds of learners because I could pinpoint their learning needs.  I further refined my system so the third graders could translate pesukim independently. The ITL system was highly effective.  My son was in my class, so I have also been able to track his progress applying the skills we learned and his recall of vocabulary as he began to learn Mishnah with my husband this summer.

Would it work with adults? - This summer, a baalas teshuva asked me to teach her Chumash. This was the chance I had been waiting for to see if adult learners would be successful learning with this system. I decided to include an online component since much of the work requires drills and practice which is unnecessary to do in a class setting. I had set a goal for myself last summer to learn Moodle so I chose that platform, learned animation techniques in powerpoint,  found a gracious host, some engaging review tools (dahbear, classtools.net) and free screencasting software called ActivePresenter. 

My Audience

My class ended up being 6 adult women who are Orthodox. The majority became religious in their teens or early adult hood, none had a day school education through high school. All were professionals with advanced degrees.

Results 


From the first class, the results were immediate and exciting. We began from the beginning - I taught how to find a perek and pasuk in Chumash and defining the 5 books of Moshe. By the 8th class, the women were  translating the pesukim from the hebrew text with help for only the most obscure conjugations and words (i.e. Pual tense). 

Class structure - The structure of each unit was the same. We began with vocabulary, moved on to grammar rules, translated a group of Pesukim with each woman taking turns to read and translate, and then we analyzed the pesukim, either looking at each word or at the whole unit for themes. For me, the most fun was when we  were analyzing the position of rashi and ramban together rather than lecturing like the "sage on the stage"

Delivery - Using Powerpoint, and its animations were very helpful. I was able to include graphics and color coding that can't be done on a blackboard alone. I had a  computer and projector which was pretty cheap, and it did what I needed it to do. After each new skill taught, we did exercises to apply the skill immediately so there was immediate reinforcement of new concepts.


Online content - After each lesson, I put a screencast up of the lesson.  review games for the vocabulary, and multiple choice quizzes on words in context.  If this had been a college course with accountability, I would have included online research about concepts and people that we couldn't address in class (Lot and his appearance throughout Tanach, the role of Sarah as the wife of Avram)

Time - The one negative was the time it took to prepare the class. Before each unit, I had to prepare extensive handouts on all the vocabulary. The initial powerpoints took a tremendous amount of time to create. Now I am able to cut and paste but that still adds hours to the preparation.

Online component=NO LIFE The online component  took even more time. a lot, a lot of time. I had to create quizzes in csv format. Nikud (hebrew punctuation)  is not supported in excel.  I made tables in Word, converted them to text, copied it to Notepad and saved it in a UTF-8 file format. Typing the quizzes, uploading them, creating the links all took hours of time for material that takes 5 minutes to use.

Thumbs up for dahbear & classtools! I found dahbear.org, and classtools.net the most promising tools because they create engaging content that the students will use over and over again to review.  dahbear was great but classtools.net has this awesome arcade review game where students can blast vocabulary words with what sounds like cannon fire. The game speeds up so it is more addicting than flaschcards. Dahbear has multiple choice quizzes and the font is readable on all machines. Plus it is compatable with the ipod/ipad.

The moodle multiple choice quizzes were cumbersome to create but are beneficial in that it gives immediate feedback.

Creating screencasts? mixed reviews The same content that was engaging in class and can be lightened up with situational humor becomes more stale online. I wish I had time to watch the best screencasts out there so I can improve my technique. But I have no time because of how intense it is to create the blended learning component. I did improve slightly as I went along and learned to use a highlighted mouse hover.  If you want to give me feedback - I would love to hear some.

Takeaways

1. ITL works! this was perhaps the most exciting result of this class. Adults, children and teens benefit from a structured skill building class based on the principle of Zone of Proximal Development. There is great promise for replicating this system in other classrooms and schools.
2. Adult Learners are diverse - I needed to use my whole teaching arsenal including visual cues, mnemonics and "recognition before recall" to reach each adult learner just like I would have had to do in my classroom. Being aware of learning disabilities and styles is just as important for teaching adults as children.
3. ITL style courses are necessary  There is a real need for classes that teaches Jewish literacy to adult learners. Accomplished professionals with PhDs should be able to learn the basics in a way that is not condescending. Right now there is a lot of inspiration but it doesn't make the learner the center of the learning experience. After listening to most shiurim online, will the learner be able to pick up a Jewish text on his own and learn with greater ease? While Artscroll is a wonderful tool, we need to figure out how to move people past this stage to translating on their own.
4. Online learning for Jewish literacy and skills for adults needs to happen -  Online learning would be a great tool for this population. Adult learners are self-motivated. The skills and content are concrete and can be tested and reviewed online. 
5. Live classes inspire effort and comraderie - Nothing replaces a live debate as two students grapple over a text together. The physical proximity, and the social and  sensory experience is a very motivating component of a classroom. The teacher can modify the class on the fly based on the facial expressions and interest of a particular group.
6. Online classes are time intensive and won't save $ - Online classes shouldn't be created to save money but to serve a need. It takes too much time (right now) to prepare the live class well, and create the online modules. The software needed to do it right also cost $. There are free programs but by using them, you miss out on leveraging the best features of online learning. Online Learning can reach motivated learners who don't have access in their community
7. Content is king- technology is only there to serve a pedagogic purpose. The online learning components should  only be use if a similar exercise would be helpful in a regular classroom. 

It's been a great month.  I'm excited to do this work again


Here are some of the more technical aspects of the Course for those who are interested:


Course Objectives:

• Students will be able to find a perek and pasuk in a chumash
• Students will translate selected nouns and shorashim out of context
• Students will translate noun prefixes and possessive suffixes out of context
• Students will be able to translate nouns with specific prefixes and possessive suffixes
• Students will be able to identify shorashim in a conjugated verb in context in the chumash.
• Students will be able to translated conjugated verbs in the pasuk by breaking apart the word using rules of dikduk
• Students will be able to break pesukim into phrases using taamei hamikra
• Students will identify textual ambiguity, redundancy and improper use of grammar and formulate questions about the text
• Students will recall details from story after reading pesukim independently
• Students will ask philosophic questions based on themes in the pesukim.

Audience

Adult women who did not have a day school education. Many became religious in their teens or early adult hood. All were professionals with advanced degrees.

Live class materials

Reference materials (given in sheet protectors)

• index of all shorashim in Lech Lecha with translations
• Graphic organizer of Conjugated verb forms 
• alphabetized prefix/suffix chart

Before each unit

• List of shorashim  with blanks to fill in translations , common shorashim bolded,  *'s next to already learned shorashim, 
• List of nouns, blanks next to nouns already learned, rest translated
• List of prefixs, blanks next to prefixes already learned, rest translated  
• List of suffixes, blanks next to suffixes already learned, rest translated  
• List of grammar rules with examples
• linear translation sheets with blanks for any concepts that had been taught

Online Course setup

• All the handouts for each class
• Screencasts for each part of the class
1. Vocabulary - nouns, verbs, prefixes, suffixes. I included visuals for each noun and verb. ( I had created many visuals this past year for a student who was a very visual learner)
2. Grammar Rules - animated powerpoint that conjugated verbs using color coding so that even students with a non-verbal learning disability could pick out the difference in the conjugation.
3. Analysis - step by step analysis of both the words and themes as well as analysis of the commentaries
• Review games for nouns/verbs/prefixes & suffixes
• dah bear
• classtools.net
• Quizzes
• multiple choice and matching quizzes on nouns and verbs as they appear in the context of the pesukim through moodle

ITL: Lech Lecha Perek 12: Pesukim 1-5

Online Resources for Learning this Unit

Some More About Nouns

 More About Verbs

Translating the Pesukim

Exploring the Text Part I

Exploring the Text Part II

ITL: Perek 11: Pesukim 29-32

Building Blocks

Translation the Pesukim

Going Deeper

Teaching Rashi the fun way

Learning to read Rashi script was a highlight for many of my students this year. We took a full body approach to learning the new font. While moving, jumping and acting, my students learned their  letters with a lot of joy.

Here is the teacher's workbook. It has some tips about how to make the more confusing letters become very recognizable. The best idea was the rashi letter simon says. Read on to find out more.

Rashi Workbook Teacher Edition 2012

 Here is the student workbook Rashi Workbook 2012 Happy Learning

ITL: Perek 11: Pesukim 24-28 - Building Blocks of Chumash & Avram's early life

Here is Part 2 of Introduction to Independent Torah Learning.  If you would like to view all the resources available with this course - please email me.

Part 1: the building blocks of the Chumash text: Nouns!

Verbs!  - This video will be posted for a limited time. The free version  http://youtu.be/B7jifNz15EA will be posted soon instead



Practicing it with the text!

http://youtu.be/iQzOsbk7czA

Analyzing the Pesukim

Introduction to Independent Torah Learning: Class 1

Have you wanted to learn how to learn Chumash but never had a chance to learn how.  I am offering a course online doing just that.  Here are the videos. Email me if you want to be registered for the class with all the resources.

Class 1 Part 1:   What are the 5 books of the Torah? How do I find my place in the text?
What are legitimate ways of interpreting the Chumash?

Class 1 Part 2: The First 2000 years: From Adam to Avram

June 8, 2011 recap

Today was one of those days that teachers dream about. A chance to see all my efforts over the year come full circle.

Here is how it happened.  

We only had three pesukim left to learn in Parshas Vayeitzei. I had the class read the pasukim aloud without teaching them at all. Of course, as we were reading about Yaakov meeting up with the melachim, the class exploded with questions. Was Yaakov in Eretz Yisrael? How could the melachim of Eretz Yisrael come to greet him as Rashi says? Which malachim did he send to Har Seir? Surely not the melachim of Eretz Yisrael. In the beginning of Vayeitzei, he saw the melachim in a dream. Was this in a dream?  The class started flipping forward to Vayishlach to discover more information about the melachim and their journey. 

Finally, we finished the parsha with fifteen minutes to spare before recess. I was in a quandary. The day before, I had quizzed the class on the 30 shorashim in the perek, and they had done review work. I figured we could squeeze in the exciting parsha of behaalosecha in the extra time. Unfortunately, my parsha worksheets were in the office. 

When I told the class my plan they asked if they could learn the next parsha while I was out of the room. I agreed if they kept the noise to a dull roar. I left and got sidetracked at the copier for a few minutes.  When I returned, the students were sitting at the table and at their desks with chavrusas. They excitedly shouted "We finished to Pasuk יא - the eleventh verse!" I asked what that meant. They informed me that they had read and translated seven pasukim and were now asking questions about those pasukim. 

Their eyes shone. They love to learn and know how to learn.

What nachas! 

One of my theories of education is that students need to do the real thing. They don't have Chumash class. They learn Chumash - just like their fathers and mothers do.  As a teacher, my job is to provide them with supports so they can act like the adults. 

A perfect model for this method of education is training wheels on a bicycle. With training wheels, a child learns to ride his bike and the feel of bike riding. Then the training wheels come off, and the parent holds on to the back, providing less support, but still helping the child learn how to ride. Finally, the parent lets go. The child begins to peddle on his own. He may fall a few times, he may wobble at first, but very quickly he rides off on his own. His legs are strong enough, and his sense of balance has been developed so he no longer needs his parents to help him at all. And then a wonderful thing happens, the child begins to bike ride with the parents and they explore new paths together. 

The same thing happens in school. My students know what it means to learn Torah. They see their  parents do it, they see older students do it and they want to do it too. Nebach, they don't have the vocabulary or the maturity  to learn as their parents do. So like the training wheels, they learn with a little help keeping them upright and moving forward.  At first, they got a lot of help with vocabulary and reading. Later, in the year, once they had mastered the basic vocabulary, they only need help with the hard words. Then, the training wheels can come off so they can learn on their own. The final stage is when parent and child, teacher and student begin to learn together as partners in discovering the Torah. The progression must be gradual and deliberate to ensure that the child will get stronger and stronger until they are ready to be independent. 

Today, I saw my theory vindicated. These kids are learning like real masmidim acting like they are sitting in a beis Medrash. They approach learning Torah with a sense of ownership and pride. 

Teaching like this requires a change of mindset.  A teacher can view himself like he is pulling a horse to water, as if he is doing all the hard work in the relationship. But with this attitude, when he is not around, his students won't want to learn. He can view himself like the driver of a car, who determines the roads yet to be travelled. But again, no student wants to go down a path that is determined by others. 

Or, a teacher can view himself like he is that parent, holding on to the back of a bicycle without training wheels. His most fervent hope is that the child will pedal off, leaving the parent waving as he watches his child disappear around the corner with new-found independence. When a teacher teaches with this mindset, the child senses that he is the master of his learning. The child will take ownership for his learning as he is able to set his own course in life and blaze new trails. 

Teaching Beginning Chumash - the ITL system

I spent some time teaching students who insisted they couldn't translate a pasuk. I tried to create a systematic way of reaching them. Here are my ideas

Rationale for system - The best learning comes through authentic involvement in the process. The process is modeled after being an apprentice rather than a student. An apprentice is involved to the best of his ability, while a student is perceived as an empty vessel to be filled by the teacher. To be authentically involved, the student must be provided with scaffolds so that they can act like the experts and can learn gradually how to be an expert.

Translated from jargon to English - I need to learn with my students not teach at my students.

For chumash, the key component missing is knowledge of grammatical structure and common words.


check out this post for reflections on using the ITL system
video examples of ITL independent Torah Learning -

Step 1.

1. Teach taamei hamikra - very essential - you need to stop after these signs to be able to translate pesukim. This step must be first!
2. Pick a logical chunk of story. Up to 10 pesukim works nicely. Pick out most common shorashim, prefixes, suffixes. Write all of them down. Translate the words using the shorashim and prefix list guide sheets.
3. Go through the pesukim and put lines after the words with the trop signs
4. Take turns reading the pesukim consulting the list of prepared words for help. I help break down the words initially by saying them syllable by syllable. Make sure that the reader stops by the trop signs.
5. Summarize the content of each of the pesukim.
6. Go through pasuk by pasuk and learn in depth (sometimes I combine steps e &f )
7. Read rashi for the knowledge of the letters rather than translation. If rashi skills are very weak start with rashi workbook, rashi matching games, etc.

Step 2

No putting in trop signs first, don't help syllable by syllable, don't summarize pesukim rather make sure that phrases are understood

1. Pick a chunk, go through and pick out most common shorashim, prefixes, suffixes. Write all of them down. Translate using guide sheets.
2. Take turns reading the pesukim consulting the list of prepared words for help. Make sure that the trop signs are followed religiously
3. Ask the students to find the phrase that means xyz or to answer an ?? ?? ????
4. Go through pasuk by pasuk and learn in depth (sometimes I combine steps j &k) making sure that the student can ask good questions
5. Read rashi for the knowledge of the letters rather than translation

Step 3

1. Prefixes and suffixes are learned with their context - the Shorashim.
1. Pick a chunk, go through and pick out words that have prefixes and suffixes. Write down the ones you don't know. Pick out shorashim & write down the ones you don't know. Translate those words before reading the pesukim
2. Concentrate on finding ?' ?????? and translating correctly.
3. Take turns reading the pesukim consulting the list of prepared words for help. Make sure that the trop signs are followed religiously
4. Ask students to make up their own "Who is it talking about"
5. Go through pasuk by pasuk and learn in depth (mostly I combine steps j &k)
6. Start to work on rashi skills - have students rewrite rashi by writing out phrases, underline question, answer, key words, quotes, begin rashi vocab journal)

Step 4
Almost there!

1. Pick a chunk, orally review difficult words, prefixes
2. Take turns reading the pesukim. Make sure that the trop signs are followed religiously
3. Go through pasuk by pasuk and learn in depth. begin reading meforshim with nikud.

Here is a sample of some of my classwork http://hochheimer.net/shira_classes/sample%20remedial%20work.pdf

Teaching it Right the First Time

I used to teach in High School. It was very rewarding, but at times I felt like pulling out my hair. I couldn't get some kids to remember assignments, translate basic pesukim or recall the story accurately no matter how many times we reviewed. I couldn't figure out where the problem was and how to correct it.

Last night I saw this video - http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=9 A Private Universe produced by the Annenberg Foundation that made me think about that experience and how what we teach when really impacts kids' lives.

The video is 20 minutes long and traces how both Harvard graduates and high school students had no idea why there are four seasons and different phases of the moon. The video follows one very bright high school student who has bizarre ideas about moon phases and seasons. The video then shows how with the successful intervention of a high school teacher these misconceptions are somewhat laid to rest. However, the brilliant high school student clings to some of the mistaken ideas despite the best efforts of her teacher.

My Ah-ha moment came at about 4 minutes in. The narrator says "These students have had virtually no instruction in science"

I've just spent a good chunk of my life analyzing K-4 science curriculum and I beg to differ. Our kids have not had virtually no instruction in science. The kids learn about seasons in nursery, kindergarten, first grade, and third grade. They learn about the phases of the moon in 3rd grade. If you are lucky, they have had a lot of great instruction in science. If you are not, our kids have had a lot of instruction in science that was superficial, simplistic or incorrect.

The video shows that this initial learning sticks and is very hard to undo. How is a kindergarten teacher supposed to explain the impact of the Earth's revolution and its tilt on the seasons to a bunch of 5 year olds? Teachers try and, in large part, succeed in having the 5 year old understand on a 5 year old level. The problem comes when the learning from kindergarten does not get updated to match the sophistication of the other learning. Someone needs to explicitly challenge a student's kindergarten level idea to update these basic concepts. Sometimes the reteaching works, often times it does not. One might argue that it is better to avoid teaching something rather than teach it on such a simplistic level that it is essentially incorrect.

Chazal have already taught us that girsa d'yankusa - what we learn when we are young - leaves an indelible impression on us. If simplistic or incorrect explanations mess up a Harvard graduates's understanding of the universe, what does learning incorrect or simplistic Torah do to our children? How many of us have absurd notions of the Avos and Imahos because we have not updated our knowledge to our current level of sophistication? How many of us envision Rochel Imeinu sitting on a camel outside her tent because of the parsha pictures we have seen as little kids? Do we ever question whether our ideas are grounded in Torah?

This year I am teaching third grade.Today, I was teaching the topic of Yaakov getting Esav's bracha from Yitzchak. Even at eight years old, the kids had preconcieved notions of what was in the pesukim. When challenged they said to me " I don't know where it says it, but I know it is true." Exploding these ideas took hard work, but once I made the kids look at the pesukim they were astounded how much of the story they really did not know. Only then, were we ready to learn.

There is nothing simple about teaching elementary school. In everything I do, I am laying the foundation for their ability to learn in the future. I teach them shorashim, how to translate pesukim, read Rashi, halacha, and parsha. I also teach them how to keep an organized binder, hand in homework responsibly, and be a mentch. I want them to succeed in high school where my other students never had the chance.

The seforim I used to teach high school are still open on my desk. Each day, I have to evaluate what I should teach and what ideas are too complex and can only be taught when the students gain a greater level of sophistication. Yesterday, I taught what I thought was a great Rashi for third grade. The words were easy, and there were a few new vocabulary words I wanted to reinforce. The Rashi said that Rivka asked Yaakov to bring two goats to serve Yitzchak because one would be a replacement for Esav's dish and one would be for the Korban Pesach. We rewrote the rashi script and translated the words. All was great until one student raised her hand. "How could Rivka make a korban Pesach if they hadn't gone down to Mitzrayim yet?" Uh-Oh. I didn't see that one coming. How do I explain the eternity of Torah law and its influence on historical events to eight year olds? Would a superficial answer corrupt them from learning it completely when they are ready? Or, could I teach them something true and understandable on their level?

I make these decisions everyday when teaching third grade. I know the other teachers are equally concerned about teaching truth to the students from the time they are in nursery. I have made some mistakes and that is an awful responsibility. But having these goal in mind helps minimize those mistakes.

As parents and educators, we must always envision our children as being our Harvard graduates. We must see them as the bright, capable adults they will become and teach them so that they will be successful when they get there. We must realize that what they learn as toddlers and children will impact the heights they reach as adults. It's an awesome responsibility and priviledge that we are entrusted with. A lot of faith has been placed in us and we just have to work to do it right.

Self - Assessment & Feedback

Learning happens when kids are invested in what they are doing. This works best if they buy into the process and know why they are doing what they are doing. Over the years, I have developed questionnaires to help the students figure out what they need to best learn and why we are doing what we are doing.

This tool promotes a better classroom climate and learning. Research says that students who set personal goals for learning learn more effectively (Marzano). I have combined this goal setting with getting feedback to help improve my teaching and student learning 

I have used this technique in my high school classes because it requires students who are cognizant of what they are learning. At the beginning of the year, I give my students a list of skills that are necessary to learn Chumash (segmenting a passuk up to comparing Meforshim's essential premise) and ask them to rate themselves 1-5 for each skill. I then ask them to pick 5 skills in which they would like to improve, for any instructional techniques that help them, what can I do to help them achieve their goals and their favorite subjects. This lets them know from the start that I am tailoring the class to them, and I expect the year to be a learning process for both of us. 

On subsequent tests, I include a feedback section. I take out the key skills that we have worked on in that unit and ask them to rate themselves 1-5. I then ask questions about what instructional practices have helped them achieve their goals and other open ended questions about the learning going on in class. It is worth 5 points on the test so the students answer it. Asking them to rate themselves is important because it focuses their suggestions on academics rather than personality. 

Shockingly, most students are very sincere and concrete in their feedback. They have asked to increase homework frequency, use the board differently and have even suggested a particular graphic organizer. I make sure to modify my instruction and tell them I am doing so. If I can find educational research that backs up their request, I tell them about it. This helps the students be conscious of their thinking and learning styles. It becomes highly motivating for them to come up with clear, concrete suggestions instead of general complaints. It creates a classroom focused on growth rather than on getting good grades. I love when a student comes up at the end of class and says she is proud of me that I ____ while I am teaching. It also means I can change course if I see something isn't working instead of waiting until the end of the year to hear that a kid feels he didn't learn all year. 

I save the feedback sheets. On the final, I ask them the same questions as I did on the first day. Last year, I circled their original rating from the first day so they could see their growth. This was particularly meaningful for kids who got C's & D's since they saw their own growth and they cared less that their grade was low. I then use their feedback from the whole year to plan for my next year. If I see that students don't feel like they have improved in a particular area, I use my summer to think of strategies of how to address that skill set. 

here is a link to my assessment tool http://hochheimer.net/shira_classes/feedback_self_assessment_tool.pdf