Transformimg Jewish Lives
Featured Listings
A Burning Campus? Rethinking Israel Advocacy at America’s Universities and Colleges Featured
As the professional leaders of an organization that works to support Israel on campus, we are often
asked by other Israel supporters if the pro-Israel community is winning or losing the battle on
campus for Israel. Our answer is it depends on which battle you are talking about.
We are winning one battle but losing the other.
The pro-Israel community’s battle in much of the rest of the world, where Israel is mostly unpopular,
is to halt efforts to turn Israel into an international pariah akin to apartheid South Africa. Our battle
in the U.S., however, where Israel is mostly popular, is to maintain long-term two party support. It’s
not good enough that we stop the U.S. from becoming anti-Israel. We have to make sure the U.S.
remains pro-Israel, which is a much taller task.
Our primary task on campus is not to fight the anti-Isr ...
- Research Reports and Studies
Afterschool Evaluation 101: How to Evaluate an Expanded Learning Program Featured
Afterschool Evaluation 101 is a how-to guide from The Harvard Family Research Project for conducting an evaluation. It is designed to help out-of-school time (OST) program directors who have little or no evaluation experience develop an evaluation strategy. The guide will walk you through the early planning stages, help you select the evaluation design and data collection methods that are best suited to your program, and help you analyze the data and present the results.
Evaluation helps your OST program measure how successfully it has been implemented and how well it is achieving its goals. You can do this by comparing the activities you intended to implement and the outcomes you intended to accomplish to the activities you actually implemented and the outcomes you actually achieved.
- Handbooks and Guides
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Arts by Day: Re-envisioning Day School Education through the Arts Featured
Arts By Day utilizes Artist-in-Residency programs to transform Jewish Day Schools into hubs of Jewish exploration via the arts. Students, parents, teachers and Teaching Artists engage in a unique curriculum that is steeped in Jewish history, ancient text, pop culture and Jewish values using the arts as the core methodology to immerse the mind, body and spirit. Arts By Day programs foster deep exploration, meaningful dialogue and the long-lasting, identity-building blocks that inspire Day School students to carry on our sacred traditions and lead the next generation toward a revitalized Jewish future.
- Organizations
Assessing The Lessons Learned As 10th Anniversary Nears Featured
This article from The Jewish Week culls reflections on the lessons of 9/11 from agency heads, rabbis, victims’ families, & students, as we approach the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
Classroom Technology Featured
This webinar, with guest expert Morrisa Golden-Sieradski, is a follow-up discussion to the Quick Bytes newsletter on the same topic (see the newsletter in our archives). Click on the link above to view the full recording of this session (total running time: 44 minutes). You may also wish to visit some of the following resources (not every item on this list was discussed in the webinar):
Custom-built Google Search example
- Interactive Resources - Webinars
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- Video
Congegational Education and Whole Person Learning Featured
This webinar was recorded in November 2011, and features Cyd Weissman, Director of Innovation in Congregational Learning at the Jewish Education Project in New York (total running time: 62 minutes). Cyd has spearheaded the Jewish Education Project’s work with the Coalition of Innovating Congregations and LOMED, a cutting-edge initiative to transform congregational learning. In the Webinar, Cyd talks talk about some of the latest work with congregations to nurture “holistic learning,” and facilitates discussion among participants. You may also wish to view the entire short film that Cyd shares in the session, "The High Five," on YouTube.
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Digital Textbook Playbook Featured
- Handbooks and Guides
Eco-Jewish Education -- How to Make It Effective Featured
The author discusses the range of ways in which environmental issues are integrated into Jewish education curricula. He identifies four elements of experiential education that involve students' relationship to their learning experience: 1) each other; 2) their teacher; 3) their curriculum; and 4) their physical setting. The author provides examples of Jewish environmental educational approaches which incorporate these elements. In Jewish Education News, Summer 2008.
Experiential, Environmental Education: A Natural Connection Featured
Experiential environmental education includes awareness, interconnectedness, and responsibility. It is usually taught to our children only upon request, once or twice a year, by guest educators who come to the classroom to do specialized programming. We need a rethinking and reshaping of how these teachings can enhance the Jewish educational system, beginning with the current curricula in rabbinical schools and Jewish teacher training programs.
Getting In On the Act: How Arts Groups are Creating Opportunities for Active Participation Featured
Arts participation is being redefined as people increasingly choose to engage with art in new, more active and expressive ways. This compelling trend carries profound implications, and fresh opportunities, for a nonprofit arts sector exploring how to adapt to demographic and technological changes.
Getting In On the Act: How Arts Groups are Creating Opportunities for Active Participation is a new study commissioned by The James Irvine Foundation and conducted by WolfBrown. It draws insights from more than 100 nonprofit arts groups and other experts in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. The report presents a new model for understanding levels of arts engagement as well as case studies of participatory arts in practice. It also addresses many of the concerns that arts organizations may have in supporting participatory arts practices and provides inspiration and ideas for exploring thi ...
- Research Reports and Studies
Home and away: Jewish journeys towards independence; Key findings from the 2011 National Jewish Student Survey Featured
The National Jewish Students Survey (NJSS) provides a comprehensive portrait of Jewish student identity in England. Carried out in February and March 2011, the survey examines a wide range of issues including what and where Jewish students are studying, the nature of their Jewish beliefs and behaviors at university and at home, and the Jewish paths they have taken during their upbringing. It found that Jewish students are comfortable being openly Jewish at British universities, despite having concerns about attitudes to Israel on campus. Their commitment to Israel and the Jewish People is robust, but their appreciation of their personal social responsibility lacks muscle.
- Research Reports and Studies
Incorporating Social Justice into Jewish Education Featured
This panel discussion was recorded at JESNA's Enriching LIFE Fellowship seminar in July 2011, featuring guest speakers from Hazon, Repair the World, The American Jewish World Service, and AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps. You may view the recording of this panel in the window below, as well as download the articles the panelists shared with the fellows:
Hazon Theory of Change (105.27 kB) Social Service or Social Change Kivel (Category:Tikkun Olam/Social Justice
- Video
Intro to Jewish Experiential Education Featured
In April 2012,Grsinpoon-Steinhardt Awards winners participated in a webinar on Jewish experiential education with guest speaker Mark Young of the JTS William Davidson Graduate School. You may wish to download the PowerPoint presentation from this session before watching the video:
Introduction to Jewish Experiential Education (1.35 MB)
If you are a current or former Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award winner, we encourage you to fill out this brief survey after viewing the webinar. (Total running time: 70 minutes)
- Interactive Resources - Webinars
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JETS (Jerusalem EdTech Solutions) Featured
JETS (Jerusalem EdTech Solutions) was founded by former North American Jewish educators currently living in Israel who combine to bring a wealth of experience in Jewish studies instruction, curriculum development, and staff development, along with a deep understanding of North American Jewish and general education. In addition, the Jerusalem location of JETS provides access to educational materials and methodologies developed in the vast Jewish educational infrastructure in Israel, the opportunity for on-site development to bring Israel into Diaspora classrooms and communities, and contact with a significant pool of capable former Diaspora Jewish educators who have moved to Israel.
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Jewcology Featured
Jewcology is a project of graduates of ROI (http://roicommunity.org), who have come together to create a resource for the entire Jewish-environmental community. Jewcology incorporates collaboration from a wide range of Jewish environmental leaders and organizations worldwide. This project was funded by the ROI Innovation Fund.
The long-term goal of this project is to build a multi-denominational, multi-generational, regionally diverse community of Jewish environmental activists, who are learning from one another and from an expanding set of Jewish-environmental resources, how to educate their communities about our Jewish responsibility to protect the environment.
- Databases and Resource Centers
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Jewish Food for Thought Featured
From the artist: This series of animations represents my personal journey in a complicated relationship with Judaism. I spent my life gravitating towards, and making, narrative art that explores the human condition from a psychological, philosophical, and existential perspective. While Judaism offers thousands of years of wisdom on the human condition, I avoided it as a source because of what I perceived to be its preachy and sometimes judgmental tone.
I became filled with questions about how much my Jewish heritage had influenced how I was raised, how I behaved, how I thought, and even who I was as a person and an artist. What I discovered was a wealth of wisdom that was just sitting, waiting to be mined. Within the Jewish texts were crucial teachings and lessons that applied as much to our contemporary lives as they did when they wer ...
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Jewish Outdoor Adventure Education: An Exemplar of Successful Experiential Jewish Education Featured
This thesis examines four case studies of previously existing Jewish outdoor adventure programs: TorahTrek, Outdoor Jewish Adventures, Shalom Institute, and the Adventure Rabbi program. The founders of each of these programs were interviewed to ascertain their reasons for founding these organizations, their desired impacts for the populations served, and their vision of the broader Jewish community. Each program promotes Jewish outdoor adventures as a way to allow the individual to experience Judaism in a new way, strengthen his/her Jewish identity and participate in the Jewish community. Attesting to the success of these programs, a questionnaire of more than 50 participants of Jewish outdoor adventures from these four organizations showed a 30% increase in participation in Jewish communal and cultural activities and a heightened personal spirituality as a result of participation ...
- Research Reports and Studies
Jewish Virtual Learning Networks: A mapping of online ‘Communities of Practice’ in the North American Jewish institutional world Featured
- Research Reports and Studies
Journal of Jewish Communal Service: Digital Archive Featured
The Journal of Jewish Communal Service was established in 1902 by the National Conference of Jewish Charities, forerunner of the Jewish Communal Service Association. Over the years there have been various name changes for both the Journal and its publisher. The Journal covers topics from all of the professional sectors of Jewish communal service. Particular issues focus on specialized fields or challenges, such as vocational services or innovation. The Journal covers topics from all of the professional sectors of Jewish communal service. Particular issues focus on specialized fields or challenges, such as vocational services or innovation.
This dig ...
- Journals
- Reference
Learning in the 21st Century: 2011 Trends Update Featured
Since 2007, Project Tomorrow has collaborated with Blackboard Inc. on a series of annual reports that focus on how online learning is changing the classroom paradigm within our nation's schools. In this latest update, we examine the Speak Up 2010 survey data collected from 379,285 K-12 students, parents and educators to highlight not only the continuing growth of online learning opportunities for both students and teachers, but also the new challenges that must be addressed to realize the students' vision for enabled, engaged and empowered learning through technology.
Download the report here: Learning in the 21st Century: 2011 Trends Update (699.43 k ...
- Research Reports and Studies