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For 120 years, Jewish LearningWorks has served as a wellspring of support and training for educators and organizations throughout the Bay Area. Since completing our strategic plan in 2017, we have expanded both the breadth and depth of our professional development offerings, which last year touched more than 1000 teachers, camping and youth professionals, senior educational leaders and others in more than 100 local organizations.

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Multiple Examples...

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Inter-generational Film making
https://www.ccmidrasha.com/better-together

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Two groups with seemingly little in common - one, average age 90; the other, a bunch of tweens and teens - got together for a recent Shabbat dinner and found they had a lot to talk about after all.

The Sept. 30 gathering at the Reutlinger Community for Jewish Living in Danville marked the first time the students, all participants in the weekly Contra Costa Midrasha, were making personal connections with the residents as part of a project with an ambitious goal: the youth will be creating films about the seniors' lives.

"I was really impressed to see them come and want to be with the old people," said resident Ellen Klebanoff. "And they showed such interest and excitement."

The project is part of the "Better Together" program made possible by a grant from the New York-based Legacy Heritage Fund, an initiative that encourages students and senior citizens to develop intergenerational Jewish relationships. The nationwide program aims to help students foster their own Jewish identities while connecting them with living history, creating a space in which an oral tradition can bring people together.

"That used to be the primary way we learned," said midrasha director Devra Aarons, a former television producer who came up with the idea of the documentaries, to be shown next spring. "I love the idea of a public sharing."

The midrasha is bringing in Berkeley-based StoryCenter to help the young participants learn how to ask questions and think about what the answers mean. After the students have spent several months talking to the seniors, facilitators from the Berkeley nonprofit will hold an intensive session in December at a weekend retreat to help them figure out what to tell and how to tell it.

"I think it really does set our program apart from the other 'Better Together' projects," said Hannah Lesser, an educator with the midrasha who will facilitate the program.

It is outside the regular scope of the midrasha, and the students who signed up for the program are getting involved in something that Aarons hopes will make a real impression in their lives, "a level of serious commitment," she said.

Eighth-grader Alison Ennik is up for it, especially the intensive StoryCenter workshop. "I'm really interested in making films," she said.

Ennik is one of eight students who signed up for "Better Together." The Contra Costa Midrasha also has a regular program for Jewish students in grades 8-12, with sessions every Wednesday night at Congregation B'nai Tikvah in Walnut Creek. Reutlinger is a senior living community of around 180 that provides health care and social support in a Jewish environment.

According to Carol Goldman, director of wellness and life enrichment at Reutlinger, the first meeting went so well that residents called her to marvel. Klebanoff said she was pleasantly surprised the young people were willing to spend three hours with old people they didn't even know.

"I thought it was absolutely wonderful, beautiful," Klebanoff said. "I was so impressed."

Ennik said she had fun, connecting with the residents on a common theme of Judaism but mostly just hearing about their experiences.

"We got to learn about their lives," she said.

And that was just the beginning. Aarons and Goldman are planning several activities for the two groups in order to strengthen the bonds. Even though the festival is planned for spring, the "Better Together" grant runs for two years and Aarons is hoping this year will lead to wider involvement in the project.

"We're really hoping it'll bear the fruit that we're planting," she said.

J. covers our community better than any other source and provides news you can't find elsewhere. Support local Jewish journalism and give to J. today. Your donation will help J. survive and thrive!

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Jewish seniors join with teens to create documentary series - J.

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Two groups with seemingly little in common - one, average age 90; the other, a bunch of tweens and teens - got together for a recent Shabbat dinner and found they had a lot to talk about after all. The Sept. 30 gathering at the Reutlinger Community for Jewish Living in Danville marked the first time ...

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Esther and the Pharaoh's Madface Monster Project

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Esther and the Pharaoh's Madface Monster Project

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Lester PBL Esther and the Pharaoh's Madface Monster Project

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Temple Isaiah of Contra Costa County, 955 Risa Road, Lafayette, CA, 94549Location

Congregation B'nai Tikvah, 25 Hillcroft Way, Walnut Creek, CA 94597Location

More Training Programs

Additional training programs, and events for the 2023-24 program year will be added soon.

If you are looking for training tailored to the needs and composition of your team or board, do not hesitate to contact Kathy Schwartz, Senior Director of Professional Learning. Our Customized Training program for Jewish educational organizations accepts inquiries on a rolling basis, and is generously subsidized to benefit your goals.

Voices for Good Fellowship

This two-year fellowship creates an affinity space for women leaders in Jewish communal organizations to build collegial relationships, explore of Jewish values in leadership, and address challenges unique to women in Jewish professional life. Fellows learn together in monthly seminars with core and guest faculty through the duration of the experience.
The third cohort of the Voices for Good Fellowship launches in February 2024. Applications will be received until Friday, November 3, 2023.

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Taught by Resetting the Table, this multi-session training will focus on equipping youth professionals with tools and skills to facilitate conversations

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Grade 9 English students at TanenbaumCHAT will create immersive reality / 3D documentaries on the heroic lives of Jewish senior citizens in their community.
Students will also design an app that will serve as an archive, an online film festival and a digital portfolio, featuring Jewish elderly people through the lens of the hero's journey story framework.
The unit, lesson plans and the immersive reality documentary app will be offered to Jewish high schools around the world to create their own films on Jewish seniors, and upload them on the app.
Our ultimate outcome is for the heroic journey of 200,000 Jewish seniors to be archived and shown online in our communities.
View complete entry "
The Akiva Broadcasting Network (ABN) is an interactive, team-oriented program of study where students develop communications skills; broadcast technology and technical skills; and critical life skills, integrating Jewish and Secular Studies across the curriculum.

ABN is part of the Kid TV program developed by Professor Larry Katz with the objective to teach cross curricular skills to students through the creation of TV newscasts that are shared with other members of their school community via an internal broadcast network and are also shared on the school website. Student select the news items, prepare the D'vray Torah, and stories on famous Jewish personalities, write the scripts, shoot and edit the stories, do the interviews, take on the roles of anchors and reporters, manage the broadcasts and handle all of the technical jobs
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj_uSY53-dM&feature=youtu.be).
View complete entry "
The SOLE Student Leadership Seminar is a full-day, interactive leadership seminar for grades 9-12 which combines real world skill development learned from world experts, with the application of Jewish values in the community.

Students learn from SOLE mentors including Rabbis, Commanders in the IDF, Professors specializing in Israeli Affairs, and other thought leaders in an innovative learning environment called a Self-Organized-Learning Environment or SOLE.

After each keynote, the speakers join the students in small group discussions on how to apply what they just learned from the presentations to their clubs, committees and Israeli-themed projects.
View complete entry "
I teach my students that all of learning and all of life is connected. When we realize connections, we celebrate our
learning. The attached PDF titled Real-World Learning explains how my students learn about the environment and the real world around them by being exposed to connections inside and outside of the classroom and by being encouraged to question and to create ideas.

My presentation begins with the PDF titled Real-World Learning. Thank you!
View complete entry "
Through an interdisciplinary integrated PBL on amusement parks, our 4th graders gain real world experience by

participating in a program to increase their understanding of economics and money systems and applied their knowledge

about supply and demand as well as profit and loss and related it to the project. In all the different subject areas students

experience and participate in different lessons all related to the amusement park. The project presents an opportunity to

build and enhance our students' cooperative learning skills.
View complete entry "

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PBL - Project Based Learning - Kohelet Prize

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Grade 9 English students at TanenbaumCHAT will create immersive reality / 3D documentaries on the heroic lives of Jewish senior citizens in their community. Students will also design an app that will serve as an archive, an online film festival and a digital portfolio, featuring Jewish elderly people through the lens of the hero's journey story framework.

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NLE Resources invites rabbis and educators from around the world to contribute guest posts. Here's a new blog from Rabbi Yehuda Chanales, Director of Educational Technology and Rebbe at Torah Academy of Bergen County, New Jersey.
Over the past two years, I have been doing a lot of research and learning about Project Based Learning (PBL), one of the numerous "21st century learning" strategies that his been increasing in popularity in the general education world (See Edutopia's PBL site).

PBL proponents claim that students learn best when they are working to solve authentic, real life problems that are similar to the types of issues professionals might encounter in their work or general adult life. When material is framed in this context, the question of "Why do we need to know this?" is easily answered and learning becomes necessary for more than just acing the upcoming test. As students work to produce a solution to the problem, the teacher serves as a guide to facilitate their inquiry by providing resources, materials and lessons that they can use. While this model appears a natural fit for science and math classes, it has encouraged me to think more carefully about the "authentic problems" we would like students to be able to "solve" in limmudei kodesh.

With the help of some innovative teachers and Dr. Moshe Krakowski, a curriculum and PBL scholar at YU's Azrieli Graduate School, I developed the following questions on Megillat Esther that students in my Nach classes last year were assigned. As part of the assignment, students met with prominent professionals and interviewed them about the "real life" problems each question dealt with. Thank you to Rabbi Steven Weil of the OU, Mr. Michael Miller of the JCRC and Rabbi Yaakov Glasser of NJ NCSY for volunteering to meet with students!

You can view some of their work here and I look forward to sharing a student published iBook which includes work from all the megillot and Sefer Yonah very soon. If you would like to see more examples of some PBL assignments and join a group of educators experimenting with applying PBL to Torah learning, vist the PBL group on Yeshiva University's HSChinuch Community. Feel free to contact me at ychanales@gmail.com with any questions.

Here are the questions:
1. מגילת אסתר's role in תנ"ך
You are an esteemed member of אנשי כנסת הגדולה who has received a request from אסתר to include her ספר in תנ"ך (as the גמ' מגילה records- the request of "כתבוני לדורות") and have been asked to present a summary of her arguments and those of your fellow "כנסת" members who claim that the מגילה should not be included. You may present your arguments as a written brief, series or correspondences or an oral debate. Consider both the substance of the מגילה and precedents in תנ"ך to support the arguments on either side.

An alternative along these lines:

On your college campus, a non-religious Jewish friend of yours (who happens to be majoring in Bible) argues that מגילת אסתר is a completely secular book which was written to justify the development of the Purim holiday which appears to be a glorified Jewish party day. Either re-enact the debate you had with him at the Hillel's pre-Purim event that year or share with us the e-mail correspondence you had with him about this question.

(For this question, you will interview college students who have confronted questions about the divine nature of תנ"ך and how they have responded.)
2. Jewish politicians?
A prominent Orthodox Jew, Senator Moe Bieberman has just been nominated as a member of the President's cabinet. You have been asked by a local Jewish newspaper to write an op-ed piece arguing for or against Orthodox Jewish involvement in American politics and, since it is Purim time, you decide to look to מגילת אסתר as the basis for your argument. (Alternatively, you may write a letter to Mr. Bieberman arguing your position.)

Some more specific questions to consider: "כי מרדכי היהודי משנה למלך אחשורוש, גדול ליהודים ורצוי לרוב אחיו"- The גמ' describes how מרדכי was "רצוי לרוב אחיו" and not "כל אחיו" because many leaders of the generation felt he should not be involved in Jewish politics. What can מגילת אסתר teach us about the value and pitfalls of Jewish involvement in politics? How are its messages similar or different from other paradigms in תנ"ך? What can we learn from the מגילה about what our role should be in contemporary American politics? In what ways are there similarities and differences between the מגילה and today?

(For this project, you will be required to interview at least one Orthodox Jew involved in politics at the local, state or national level. I can help you find people to contact.)
3. Standing Up for Jewish Identity
The NCSY/Aish HaTorah/Bnei Akiva leadership has asked you to prepare a special Purim session for teens entitled: "Standing up for Jewish Identity: Lessons of Leadership from מגילת אסתר". Using the מגילה, prepare a session that will enable teens to discuss and learn how to inspire others to be proud of their Jewish identity.

Some more specific questions to consider: What drives an interest in hiding or ignoring Jewish identity in מגילת אסתר and what pushes or enables them to stand up for it? What can we learn from the מגילה about empowering Jews to be proud and stand up for their identity?

(For this question, you will interview local outreach professionals)
4. Invoking a Name
As the rabbi of a generally comfortable and safe Jewish community, your community has been shocked by recent Anti-Semitic attacks against the shul and individual members of the community. Members of your community are upset by the lackadaisical approach local politicians and the police department have taken towards the episode and start referring to them as "Hamans", "Hitlers", "Jew-haters" or "Anti-Semites". You decide that you must give a shiur to the community (or write an article for the shul's monthly bulletin) relating to the recent episode and the name calling.

Some more specific questions to consider: What makes someone an Anti-Semite and how do you combat their attitudes, power and influence? How is the enemy of the Jews in מגילת אסתר similar or different from other stories of Jewish persecution in תנ"ך? Similar or different from the anti-Semitism of today?
What can we learn from the מגילה about the way/s we should relate to and deal with those who hate/attack us?

(For this question you will have to interview people who have experienced anti-Semitism or work with organizations that attempt to fight it)

To learn more about PBL, and how to implement it into a Judaic studies classroom, you can view a webinar below given by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Ross on behalf of the YUHS Chinuch Community:

Photo credit: Opensourceway

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An Example of Jewish Project Based Learning: Megillat Esther

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NLE Resources invites rabbis and educators from around the world to contribute guest posts. Here's a new blog from Rabbi Yehuda Chanales, Director of Educational Technology and Rebbe at Torah Academy of Bergen County, New Jersey.

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History comes alive in Watertown. This is the message Jared Matas wanted to impart on his students at Jewish Community Day School.

Delving into local history

Jarad Matas is the director of STEM Innovation at JCDS. Part of his job is to organize the school's week-long "learning adventure," when the regular school schedule stops, and students take an educational deep dive into different real-world challenges. At the end, students prepare a project to showcase what they have learned.

This year, the seventh- and eighth-grade students delved into Watertown's local history. The school decided to have the students create multimedia exhibits for a pop-up museum, which would be open to the public.

"I am hoping to make it a community event," Matas said.

Matas is a Watertown resident and thought the project would strengthen the bond between Watertown and the JCDS students.

The week started with a tour. Faculty took the students to historical spots around the neighborhood. Students toured the Edmund Fowle House and explored the locations where the Coolidge Tavern and Paul Revere's home once stood. They also spent a morning in the library reading various primary documents.

"This is really a different way of school. It wasn't 50 minutes of math, and then 50 minutes of English," Matas said. "It was everything integrated."

After getting a taste of the local history, the students picked research topics. Faculty gave them six options: the American Revolution period, the history of Charles Lenox, the history of the Arsenal, the Armenian migration, the history of the Perkins School for the Blind and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Once the students choose their topics, they had to narrow down their focus and figure out how to present their research.

"It was up to them to uncover the story and then decide how to tell the story," Matas said.

Students get creative

The students got creative. One group designed a traditional Armenian dress, while another created a scale model of Charles Lenox's barber shop. Another group designed a virtual tour of the Arsenal and juxtaposed historical and contemporary photographs of the site.

"I learned a lot of stuff that I never knew before like that Watertown is actually a pretty historic place," said student Joe Gann.

Seventh- and eighth-grade social science teacher Josh Mocle said is happy with his students' work.

"I think the products they came up with are indicative of the amount of work they put in, and the amount of thought they put in," he said.

Matas thought that giving students the freedom to choose their own research topics and presentation methods made them more invested in their work.

"The student who loves sewing gets to focus on the clothing, and the kid who is all into tech gets to take a deep dive into that," he said. "Not everyone is doing exactly the same thing. They invest more because they care about it."

Becoming a part of Watertown

Both Matas and Mocle hope the project has fostered a deeper connection between their students and Watertown.

"I really hope they gain an appreciation of Watertown and begin to see it as one of their homes," Mocle said.

For Matas, he wants the students to feel like they are part of the history that surrounds them.

"It does not take a lot of hard work to start to uncover those stories and for us to see ourselves as a part of that story," he said. "JCDS as a school is a chapter in the history of Watertown."

The pop-up museum will take place at JCDS on Thursday, Feb. 14, 4 to 5:30 p.m. The school is at 57 Stanley Ave.

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History comes alive in Watertown. This is the message Jared Matas wanted to impart on his students at Jewish Community Day School.Delving into local historyJarad Matas is the director of STEM Innovation at JCDS. Part of his job is to organize the school's week-long "learning adventure," when the regular school schedule stops, and students take an educational deep dive into different real-world challenges.

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Transforming Synagogue Education through Project Based Learning

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Transforming Synagogue Education through Project Based Learning

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PBLWorks/eJphilanthropy

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Original posted at Jewish Philanthropy.

If asked to paint a picture of their synagogue educational experiences over the past few years, learners, families, and educators at Central Synagogue in Manhattan would describe a combination of the following: traditional teaching, frontal learning, tefillah, Hebrew, Torah, holiday celebrations, and Israel. They would also consistently talk about absent learners and the difficulty of trying to meaningfully engage students with the content. We know that this level of disengagement and illiteracy is not what we want for our students and will not fulfill our goal of helping them act as engaged Jews in the world.

As a result, after countless conversations with parents, students, staff, and other stakeholders, as well as research into the best practices happening in other communities, we crafted a new vision for the Lese Center for Living Judaism (LCLJ): to become a transformative hub for community, differentiated learning, reflective practice, and authentic Jewish experience. We selected Project Based Learning (PBL) as the best frame with which to achieve our learning and engagement goals. Even with only one year of experience under our belts, we can see how for us, PBL has transformed our learning community in important ways.

Investment of staff as reflective practitioners: To prepare for implementation with students, our staff participated in a three-day training program facilitated by the Buck Institute for Education to learn the ins and outs of PBL and prepare our new curriculum for this change. One of the hallmarks of PBL is the need for students and teachers to continuously engage in reflective practice. Educators do not just teach and move onto the next lesson. Rather, we engage in daily and weekly reflection to ensure that our goals are being met and project targets are being hit. Educators understand the purpose of what they are teaching and are invested in helping their students reach their goals.

Depth of content: One of the first pieces of feedback we heard from parents was that they wanted their children to have more than a superficial understanding of Jewish values and tradition. To that end, we implemented a trimester schedule for third to seventh graders, giving them the opportunity to explore three different units every year on topics from Bible to Jewish law, rituals to life-cycle events, the Holocaust to Israel. In a fifth-grade life-cycle class, for example, students learn every detail of what happens when someone dies, from preparing the body for burial to what to do at a shivah. These students now will be prepared for the time when they face a death in their family or in the family of one of their friends. They will both know what to do and how to be a supportive presence in a difficult time.

Student-driven learning: The vast majority of feedback we received informed us that students want to be engaged and take their learning in their own direction. PBL provides our learners the autonomy to decide what they want to explore within the unit. For example, within the life-cycle unit, each group can choose a different moment in the life cycle. Although we set the broad strokes of the curriculum, the details are no longer about filling our students' heads with information. PBL empowers our learners to transform into the educators as they formulate questions about their topic and research their answers. We then switch gears from teacher to facilitator, providing them with the tools and resources needed to advance their learning. As students expand their Jewish content knowledge, they are also acquiring the essential skills Dr. Tony Wagner, in his book Most Likely to Succeed, asserts are essential for both career and citizenship: "formulation of independent opinions, collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and communication skills."

Classroom community: PBL is rooted in authenticity, collaboration, and reflection, which enables us to naturally instill a sense of belonging and community in each learner. As groups are based on common interests, our learners work with both their friends, and classmates they may not know as well. They step out of their comfort zone, expanding their circle as they collaborate with each other and work toward the same goal: crafting a project that responds to the question or challenge at hand. In every step of the project, the groups formulate questions, reflect on their experiences, listen to their peers' experiences and projects, and provide constructive feedback. They learn how to support, challenge, and encourage each other's learning. PBL transforms our learners and educators into a community of reflective practitioners.

Community participation: Moreover, PBL encourages participation from the wider congregational community. To help personalize the content, guests are invited to share their expertise with our learners. Central Synagogue clergy, staff members, community members, and parents volunteer their time to share their own experiences engaging in Jewish holidays and life-cycle events, and their concept of and relationship to God. As a result, the wider Central community is more deeply connected to and invested in what our students are learning and helping them to grow by creating new connections that were not made in a more traditional learning environment.

The benefits we are experiencing from implementing a PBL model are extraordinary and reinvigorating. Our learners come to school ready and eager to work on their projects. They tell their families how much they'll miss if they are absent one day. Our learners delve into the Jewish content with a sense of purpose and determination while also developing essential lifelong skills. According to Wagner, "Education needs to help our youth discover their passions and purpose in life, develop the critical skills needed to be successful in pursuing their goals, be inspired on a daily basis to do their very best, and be active and informed citizens." Through its emphasis on student-driven learning and creation of a supportive, nurturing learning environment, PBL has changed the way our learners, their families, and our educators engage with Central Synagogue, with Judaism, and with one another.
A gallery of student work from the Lese Center for Living Judaism can be found here.

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Transforming Synagogue Education through Project Based Learning

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Original posted at Jewish Philanthropy. If asked to paint a picture of their synagogue educational experiences over the past few years, learners, families, and educators at Central Synagogue in Manhattan would describe a combination of the following: traditional teaching, frontal learning, tefillah, Hebrew, Torah, holiday celebrations, and Israel.

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Multiple Examples...

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Home | Getting Started | Modules | Resources | About Us

View the work of teachers who developed and implemented PBL units/mini-units. Feel free to download and use the PBL as a template for your work with students. We appreciate your feedback.
View additional middle school projects on the STEM-MI Champions Gallery page.
Project Pallooza at MACUL 2010 (MI Champions 2009-10):

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

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Home | Getting Started | Modules | Resources | About Us View the work of teachers who developed and implemented PBL units/mini-units. Feel free to download and use the PBL as a template for your work with students. We appreciate your feedback. View additional middle school projects on the STEM-MI Champions Gallery page.

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Rationale for PBL in the Jewish Classroom 

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Rationale for PBL in the Jewish Classroom 

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Mark Levine, Covenant Foundation

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Mitchel Resnick, MIT Media Lab

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PBL as "Deeper and Better" way to teach Judaism

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PBL as "Deeper and Better" way to teach Judaism

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Jared Matas / eJphilanthropy

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J-STEAM is an approach that integrates modern technology and pedagogy with timeless Jewish learning.

By Jared Matas

Every fall, as students and teachers start another school year, the Jewish calendar also restarts and Jews around the world start the annual Torah reading by hearing the story of Creation. This is presents a wonderful opportunity for Jewish educators, as the proliferation of Makerspaces and the pedagogy of 'making' are significant trends in contemporary education that are making significant inroads in Jewish education as well. Yet the Jewish connection to creating is not always obvious.

A careful look at the detailed description of building the mishkan in Parsha Terumah ( Exodus 25:1 - 27:19) is a good place to start for guidance. The Israelites were commanded to build, to make, to create. Having spent many, many hours building with Lego in my youth, I can't help but relate to these lines while picturing G-d's commands in the unmistakable numerical font of Lego kit directions, with step by step images of dolphin skins, poles of acadia wood, and golden cherubim. Although students today have access to many more creation tools than Lego, such as laser cutters, 3D printers, and coding software, making is not new in the Jewish tradition.

Rabbi Sacks, in his d'var Torah on Parsha Terumah, suggests that G-d's directive for the Israelites to build something together was transformative, changing them from passively following to taking action. Despite a reputation for complaining, when it was time to take responsibility for themselves and collaborate on a physical project, the Israelites got to work, and did so by enthusiastically contributing materials, time and skills. Rabbi Sacks argues that this is the moment when the Israelites "transition(ed) from passive recipients of God's blessings to active creators." Becoming active creators is what we seek in our schools. Not simply recipients of wisdom shared by experts, our students need to have agency, to be empowered to take ownership of their learning.

This happens when students work on meaningful, hands on projects, where they are solving real world problems by creating artifacts, either digital or material, that can be shared with the world. In projects as diverse as 3D design, digital game-making, film recording and coding, students grapple with Text, connect to Israel, develop Hebrew language proficiency and celebrate their way through the Jewish calendar and lifecycle. Just like the biblical Israelites, our students need to be creating projects that allow them to contribute to the community, allowing them to become, as Rabbi Sacks argues, G-d's "partners in the work of creation."[Shabbat 10a.]

The Jewish educational opportunities for students in Makerspaces encourages students to apply J-STEAM more broadly in order to learn, collaborate and demonstrate what they've learned. Their capacity to create is limited only by the creativity of the teachers, and more often, their students. Ritual objects such as mezuzahs for classroom doorposts or a yad to use when reading Torah can be created using 3D printers. Laser cutters can be used to create an Omer counter or box for tefillin. Students can use Scratch to code Hanukah programs that simulate candle lighting to share with home-bound seniors in a Jewish assisted living center. Students learning Hebrew have designed their " bayit ideali" (ideal home) using Minecraft and then recorded a guided tour using Hebrew vocabulary. The Jewish calendar is a great example of the intersection of Jewish content with science, as this app demonstrates.

Rabbi Sacks's description of the Israelites is also very apt to describe the students we want to see in our Jewish classrooms. Sacks cites Berakhot 64a:13 stating "that, I believe, is what the sages meant when they said, 'Call them not "your children" () but "your builders" ()."

In J-STEAM learning opportunities, students use a Jewish lens to understand, and more importantly, to contribute to the world. By integrating important science, technology, engineering and math content with both fine arts and liberal arts, students develop integrated identities, ready to meaningfully contribute to their world. And thus we can call them, not just children, but indeed .
Dr. Jared Matas is the Director of J-STEAM at Jewish Interactive and the Director of STEAM Innovation at JCDS, Boston's Jewish Community Day School.

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Are Your Students Partners in Creation? - eJewish Philanthropy

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J-STEAM is an approach that integrates modern technology and pedagogy with timeless Jewish learning. By Jared Matas Every fall, as students and teachers start another school year, the Jewish calendar also restarts and Jews around the world start the annual Torah reading by hearing the story of Creation.

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Welcome - Intro to PBL Winter 2019 - Jewish LearningWorks

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Here is my selection of the best videos on PBL in schools. This selection includes the outstanding series from edutopia and the best videos from PBL schools on their pedagogy, protocols, processes, and systems for teaching and learning.