While families remain in summer mode, nearly 130 day-school educators from 82 schools across the United States dedicated several days to improving their craft. In a series of workshops facilitated by Hidden Sparks, educators enhanced their understanding and teaching of diverse learners, differentiating their lessons to meet the needs of all students, and learned how to teach Hebrew through multimodal, multi-sensory approaches.
“Understanding diverse learners and strategies to differentiate effectively for all students is fundamental to impactful and compassionate teaching,” says Debbie Niderberg, co-founder and executive director of Hidden Sparks. “It was inspiring to see the energy and camaraderie during the workshops as teachers from different day schools and yeshivahs discussed and explored new ideas and approaches they plan to bring back to their classrooms.”
A highlight of the workshops over the past month, Hidden Sparks presented its signature “Learning Lenses” course, which incorporates a significant amount of experiential learning and group activities.
The course, organized in collaboration with The Jewish Education Project, welcomed teachers and administrators from 13 day schools in America, including Beit Rabban, TAG, North Shore Hebrew Academy, HANC, HALB, Ramaz, The Leffell School, Shalsheles Bais Yaakov, Sinai, YTE in Houston, Torah Day School of Atlanta, Beth Jacob High School and others.
“The Learning Lenses course has empowered me as a teacher in many meaningful ways,” said Alina Merzdov of Shalsheles Bais Yaakov in Brooklyn, N.Y. “Through reading, discussion and experiential learning, we got to explore a combination of strong knowledge and skills in pedagogy and psychology, both needed for effective teaching.”
She added that “my ability to approach and see each student through the lenses of neurodevelopment, temperament and ecology was significantly enhanced. These fascinating, closely intertwined concepts will enrich my teaching a great deal when I go back to the classroom in the fall.”
Other courses included the approach to teaching Hebrew as well as differentiating instruction, which helps teachers learn and apply practical strategies, customized to their subject and grade level, that they can implement in their classrooms this fall.
“The wheels were turning in my head the entire workshop, thinking of ways that I can implement this right away to benefit my students,” said Esther Chamovitz of Magen David.
“There is that moment when teachers, novice through veteran, suddenly understand a student differently or think of a new strategy to try in their class,” said Niderberg. “It’s very exciting to see that enhanced sense of agency as teachers acquire new skills.”
