Section archive - Teacher Education

The MOFET Institute's Online Academy for Teachers has opened registration for the Spring, 2014 semester of online courses which will begin on February 23, 2014. The array of courses offered touches upon the fields of Teaching Educational Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL), Teaching Jewish Studies, and Teaching Hebrew as a Foreign Language. Several courses will be conducted in Spanish.

I attribute my strides in yoga to a particular teaching style. Enter a yoga studio for your first class and you will not see a desk, book, or whiteboard. Your tools are a mat, blocks, and a blanket. When class starts you engage in the “practice” of yoga. We need to “practice” or “do” Judaism with our learners in the same way that they put their hands to piano keys to learn music, dribble on the basketball court to become athletes, or dissect a frog as young biologists. How is it that the same kid who struggles to recite the Amidah prayer can shine on the basketball court and recall statistics for players and games? Of course, part of it is motivation. I am self-motivated to take on yoga. Still, we spend a lot of time with kids on mastering the Amidah. How can we be more successful?

In this study we investigated the perceptions and interpretations of 14 various stakeholders in the field of teacher preparation and early childhood education regarding what and how Jewish education should be learned and taught, in general, and to preschool children in contemporary Israel, in particular. The present study, carried out in the spring of 2011, employed an “ethogenic” methodology (Harré & Secord, 1972), such that that the interpretations of Jewish education were extracted from the respondents’ written statements about what they consider Jewish education and what they believe the implications are for teaching students and young children in Israel.

The Jewish Theological Seminary received a $2.67 million grant from the Avi Chai Foundation to implement its strategic plan at the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. JTS announced the funding this week for a Davidson School plan that includes providing resources to U.S. Jewish day schools, educators and leaders in Jewish education, as well as increasing its organizational capacity.