Hidden Sparks Without Walls Program
Source: Hidden Sparks Without Walls
The Hidden Sparks Without Walls Program is run by The Hidden Sparks Fund. Hidden Sparks was founded in 2005 to increase the capacity of Jewish Day Schools to address the varied needs of children with learning difficulties, particularly children whose struggles might otherwise elude identification. Its inaugural program, a school-based teacher training and coaching initiative, was launched as a pilot in seven yeshivot and day schools in the New York area in February, 2006.
The Hidden Sparks philosophy, is based on the fact that all children learn differently and the belief that the most effective program for helping those with learning difficulties is to design programs that help all children in the school. Hidden Sparks aims to aid schools to build long term capacity by providing teachers with the tools and teaching strategies to better understand and teach children with social, emotional and learning differences, and by nurturing a cadre of trained experts in the school. It also aims to help schools institutionalize a system for early identification and assessment of struggling learners.
The Hidden Sparks Without Walls initiative is designed to strengthen an educator's knowledge and practice in working with diverse learners. The program offers free short-term distance classes for teachers, educators and administrators in Jewish day schools and yeshivot, to give them the tools to enhance the ways in which children learn and behave. It also enables teachers across similar or diverse disciplines to share ideas, curriculum, and talk about their practice.
Accessible from home or school, classes are available online and through conference calls and presentations hosted through a conference call provider. Participants dial in and are admitted to the “class.” Simultaneously, all participants will have the ability to follow presentations over the Internet. All classes will be saved on the Hidden Sparks website and can be downloaded at the participant’s leisure. Some sessions may be repeated at multiple times during the day.
(From the Hidden Sparks website).