Source: eJewish Philanthropy
When the two of us from Prozdor of Hebrew College and the Eli and Bessie Cohen Camps got together in the fall of 2013 to brainstorm a new collaboration to help teach the Cohen Camps’ Dor L’Dor Leadership program participants about leadership and Israel, we immediately arrived at a proposal to try something that had never been done before – a blended learning course on those very topics. Combining online learning with the experiential components of Israel and the Counselor-In-Training program at camp, our idea would also feature in-person sessions at the camps in late summer. We believed that by offering this course, and a Hebrew College credential to the students who completed it, we would motivate the participants to enroll in the class to get an extra leg up in their applications to college. This partnership enhances the already transformative experiences of camp and Israel by extending the learning and impact beyond the two months of camp and validating the experience through Hebrew College’s certification.
This month we are concluding the second year of our first-of-its-kind partnership to engage Jewish summer campers with year-round online learning outside of their summer experience. Our partnership provides the Cohen Camps’ participants with online instruction about both Israel education and leadership development through a Jewish lens, on the online Schoology platform via a course developed and taught under Prozdor’s supervision. The participants spend three months prior to their Israel trip exploring leadership principles and education around Israel, and then head off to Israel on their life-changing summer program. Upon their return to the Cohen Camps, (either Camp Pembroke, Tevya or Tel Noar) in late summer, the participants spend the balance of the summer as CITs, receiving 10 sessions of leadership training at camp in addition to in-person sessions led by Prozdor to continue the arc of the leadership course. In the fall, the course concludes with three additional month-long modules that deepen participants’ reflective practice and growth as leaders, and continues to engage them in questions about their relationship to Israel as American Jews.
In its pilot year of 2014, the course enrolled 37 students. Throughout their six months of learning, they posted over 580 unique posts, discussions, and assignments to the online course, and clicked over 7,600 times through the various files, links, and course materials. Prozdor conferred Hebrew College Certificates in Teen Jewish Leadership to the participants in late November and quickly began updating the course for a Spring 2015 launch for the second cohort.
In 2015, the course enrolled 60 students and created over 1,200 separate discussion posts, 120 submitted assignments, and in sum total garnered nearly 13,000 separate clicks and interactions with the online content. That’s 13,000 educational moments happening in an exclusively online setting, 13,000 bursts of learning and growth that would not have happened without our unique partnership, and 13,000 moments where maybe, just maybe, the virtual schechina was hovering over our discussion boards.
The Dor L’Dor Israel and leadership program is the capstone program of the Cohen Camp’s camper’s experience. This 7 week experience is open to all teens who spent at least one session at camp the previous summer. With a 90% participation, on average 120 teens spend 5 weeks touring and learning about Israel through a lens of leadership, returning to their home camp for a 2 week Counselor/Leader in training program.