Search results for: Student empowerment

While I value tests, I also value student input and would love to find a way to give students greater input in creating their own exams. In a recent exam, I experimented with harnessing two simple educational technology tools, the Learning Management System and Google Docs to do exactly that by giving a pre-assessment assignment in which the class collaboratively created their review sheet for the test. In creating their review assignments, the students did an excellent job discovering the important ideas and details from the units studied. Many of their review items ultimately made it onto the test.

The Problem Based Learning approach has only recently been developed in Jewish educational contexts, and the transition to Judaic subject matter has revealed some significant learning and motivational benefits, as well as some significant challenges. One of the largest and most central benefits of the PBL approach is student empowerment, as PBL curricula allow students to take charge of their own learning in powerful ways. This paper identifies the key features of problem and project based learning, and will use two case studies from Judaic studies classrooms that have successfully employed this approach to illustrate how students can be empowered through deep engagement in meaningful projects and problems.

The authors describe Hidden Sparks, a program designed to help students understand how they learn. In the process, students become empowered to tackle challenges. The program helps trained teachers reach students who struggled with learning or behavioral challenges and who might otherwise have been overlooked or misunderstood. A central focus in the Hidden Sparks curriculum became metacognition.