Section archive - In-Service Training

The Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI), now in its 23rd year. is a program that strengthens the Jewish community by developing educational leaders – “teachers of teachers” – who are spearheading powerful and innovative professional development experiences for their institutions and communities. We believe that ongoing, substantive professional development for educational leaders and teachers is central to revitalizing Jewish education. MTEI’s intensive two-year program that consists of six, 4-day seminars with assignments in the field between meetings, practicing havruta text study, investigating teaching and learning practices in small and large groups, learning skills of communication and relational learning for leaders is a building block toward this goal.

A group of over 40 educators, from ten diverse Jewish Day Schools, spent three days immersed in Research for Better Teaching’s seminar on High Impact Teacher Teams. Research for Better Teaching (RBT) is a professional development organization dedicated to improving classroom teaching and school leadership. Together with educators from Prizmah: The Center for Jewish Day Schools, these teacher teams prepared to bring back solid practices to their schools that will necessitate strong modeling of teamwork among educators while using data to inform student learning.

Teachers face a dilemma in setting limits and establishing boundaries with excluded students, who often exhibit extremely disruptive behavior that cannot be ignored or condoned. Since limit-setting through threats, sanctions, punishment, or expulsion simply reinforces the cycle of exclusion, the alternative approach presented here is to treat the breaching of boundaries as a developmental rather than a moral issue. Benevolent authority and empathic limit-setting, which lie at the core of this method, involve understanding and tending to the needs of the young person while at the same time clearly defining the necessary boundaries and positively reinforcing students for maintaining them.

Are you a Jewish educator looking for engaging ways to teach Judaic studies? BimBam is excited to announce their first-ever online professional development course just for you! They will take you step by step through the animation process. It’s free and self-paced so you can take the course whenever and wherever.