JESNA’s Expertise: Learnings, Dissemination, Application

JESNA works with communities and educational leaders to generate, disseminate, and apply the knowledge and know-how needed in order to improve and transform Jewish education.

JESNA catalyzes and supports change through a “spiral” process of learnings, dissemination, and application.

Learnings
Using the unmatched empirical base of evaluations conducted by the Berman Center and drawing on the broad knowledge and experience of its professional staff, JESNA identifies what works in Jewish education under what circumstances. It organizes and synthesizes learnings from multiple sources within and beyond the field in order to create a solid framework of knowledge to undergird and inspire ongoing efforts to expand Jewish education’s reach, scope, effectiveness, and impact.

Dissemination
JESNA actively disseminates these learnings to educational and communal leadership through a wide range of media and methods, spearheaded by the work of its Learnings and Consultation Center. On the JESNA web site's Sosland Online Resource Center, a wealth of information is available about Jewish education and the ways to improve it. JESNA publications (print and online), communities of practice, and consultations are vehicles not only to disseminate learnings, but to promote the sharing of knowledge that enriches the discourse about educational policy, programming, and practices.

Application
JESNA helps our partners apply learnings to strengthen Jewish education locally and to generate new knowledge that can support cycles of “continuous improvement.” Through lay and professional development, hands-on support for local strategic planning and problem solving, communities of practice, and demonstration projects, JESNA enhances the capacity of agencies and their leaders to apply better approaches and tests out new solutions. These, in turn, help build a new generation of learnings that can accelerate the pace of positive educational change.

JESNA’s spiral of learnings, dissemination, and application is a powerful strategy for educational improvement and transformation. It is made more so by the added element of an explicit focus on innovation provided by JESNA’s Lippman Kanfer Institute. Through the Institute, JESNA seeks to identify, disseminate, and encourage the implementation of new ideas drawn from cutting-edge thinking and work in Jewish education and beyond. JESNA promotes creative and path-breaking approaches not only to specific educational challenges, but to the design of the educational system itself, driven by the goal that unifies the entirety of our work: helping more individuals to have more rewarding, impactful, and enduring experiences of Jewish learning and living.