Jewish Portal of Teacher Education

Source: The Jim Joseph Foundation Fellows

The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education invites nominations for its first cohort of Fellows for the Jim Joseph Foundation Fellowships - Leading Educators Online program. Nominees should be dynamic, experienced educational leaders in either formal and/or informal Jewish education - camps; congregational, supplementary and day schools; community centers and youth groups.

This two year professional development experience will provide participants with leadership development, enriched Jewish learning, and in-depth training in how to build online communities of practice. 

Fourteen select participants will be accepted for the first cohort and will participate in the fellowship from October 2009 through April 2011.

The two primary anticipated outcomes of the Fellows program will be:
(1) enhanced skills and capabilities of accomplished leaders in the field of Jewish education and

(2) unprecedented new opportunities for communication and collaboration for hundreds of Jewish educators who will be invited to participate in new online communities of practice.

The program includes two brief retreats in the U.S. and a ten-day seminar in Israel during the first year, followed by a retreat in the U.S. and seminar in Israel during the second year. The Israel component incorporates experiential learning and will be based at the Bar-Ilan University School of Education's new state of the art facility, the Jim Joseph Building for Jewish Education and Values.

The highlight of this program will be the launch, development and cultivation of virtual communities of educators, facilitating discussions and long-term online collaborative group projects, valuable educational materials, discussions and resources that will impact on and enrich their own professional experiences as well as the lives of students and youth with whom they work. This project will help transition the field of Jewish education from one of geographically dispersed, isolated learners and learning centers to one of integrated educational opportunities, available to all, irrespective of where they reside.

Fellows will continue in their present positions and will receive an annual stipend of $10,000 for each of the two years of the program, in addition to travel, room and board at the seminars and retreats. Nominations must be submitted no later than May 15, 2009.