Source: Gratz College
What’s NEXT in online professional development? Here are Gratz College’s NEXT program’s offerings for this summer! Supplementary school programs must hire teachers with a complex patchwork of backgrounds and skills while living with budgets that lack healthy line items for professional development for those teachers. The challenge is how to provide the range – and depth –of learning needed to efficiently enhance our teachers’ knowledge and skills. NEXT addresses the disparate levels of experience in Jewish knowledge and educational pedagogy. We have enjoyed creating partnerships with different programs, central agencies and federations.
Online, asynchrous courses for Summer 2017 include:
- Beginning the week of June 12, 2017
- Balancing Texts and Tech: 21st Century Text Study (3rd – 12th grades)
- Password to Prayer: A Literary Approach (3rd – 12th grades)
- Reimagine teaching: Creating a Positive Classroom Culture (all grades)
- A Toolbox for Teaching the Complexities of Modern Israel (7th – 12th grades)
- Hands on Ritual: Learning in the Flipped Classroom (3rd – 7th grades)
- Adding Technology to Your Jewish Classroom (3rd – 7th grades)
Beginning the week of July 10, 2017
- Jewish Education Through Musical Play (pre-K – 2nd grades)
- What ARE You Thinking? What Jewish Teachers Need to Know About the Teenage Brain (7th – 12th grades)
- Bringing the Bible to Life (3rd – 6th grades)
Beginning the week of July 17, 2017
- Truly Welcoming Children of Interfaith Families (all grades) (NOTE: This class is 3 weeks long)
Beginning the week of August 7, 2017
- Boot Camp for New Teachers (and those with minimal formal training)
- Jewish Essentials for Teachers
NEXT stands for New EXcellent Teacher Training.
Gratz NEXT addresses the widespread and well-documented challenge of engaging and retaining supplementary school (Hebrew schools, religious schools, synagogue schools, alternative synagogue learning environments) students by strengthening the quality of their teachers. The 230,000 students in both traditional and innovative supplementary schools depend on the knowledge and pedagogical skills of their teachers for compelling Jewish educational experiences.