Mandel Center Projects
(click titles for additional information)
The Mandel Center's current projects can be broadly categorized around two themes, "Educating Jewish Educators" and "Pedagogies of Jewish Studies." The Center is also engaged in other projects that fall outside of these categories.
Educating Jewish Educators
Mandel Center programs for Jewish educators serve as laboratories for research on teacher education and professional development, while building capacity in the field. Projects address the learning needs of educators at different career stages, putting the Center's research into practice.
The Elementary MAT (DeLeT) Program
In the 2007-08 academic year, the DeLeT Fellowship program transitioned to the Elementary MAT (DeLeT) Program, which continues to prepare beginning Jewish day school teachers for grades one through six, while serving as a site for studying the goals, curriculum and impact of Jewish teacher education. Students in the Elementary MAT (DeLeT) program earn a Master of Arts in Teaching in elementary education, and are eligible for initial teaching licensure (grades 1 - 6) from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Complete information about DeLeT.
Contact: Judy Elkin (delet@brandeis.edu)
Mentor Teacher Development
The Mentor Teacher Development Program is a professional development initiative that creates a community of practice among Jewish day school teachers in which active leadership and rigorous exchange about teaching and learning among colleagues lead to continuous improvement.
Leader: Vivian Troen
Contact: Vivian Troen (vtroen@brandeis.edu)
Beginning Teacher Network
The Beginning Teacher Network nurtures a professional community among first and second year teachers in Jewish day schools, and supports effective teaching.
Co-Leaders: Nili Pearlmutter and Shira Horowitz
Contact: Nili Pearlmutter (nilip@brandeis.edu)
"Choosing to Teach: Enacting Values in Practice" Study
A Comparison of Context-Specific Teacher Education Programs Preparing Beginning Teachers to Serve in Jewish, Catholic and Urban Public Schools
The “Choosing to Teach” study examines the influence of teacher education and school contexts on teacher conceptions of teaching, professional practice, and career commitments to the Jewish, Catholic and public schools in which they serve.
Leader: Eran Tamir
Senior Research Associates: Karen Hammerness (Stanford University), Bethamie Horowitz (New York University), Kavita Kapadia (University of Chicago)
Contact: Eran Tamir (etamir88@brandeis.edu)
DeLeT Alumni Tracking Study
A longitudinal tracking study designed to understand career choices and the development of professional practice and identity of graduates of the DeLeT (Day School Leadership Through Teaching) program at HUC-JIR and Brandeis University.
Director: Eran Tamir
Contact: Eran Tamir (etamir88@brandeis.edu)
Induction Partnership
The Induction Partnership investigates the ways that Jewish day schools address the needs of beginning teachers, and helps schools build the institutional capacity to independently support beginning teacher development.
Leader: Vivian Troen
Staff: Nili Pearlmutter, Sarah Birkeland (Senior Research Associate)
Contact: Vivian Troen (vtroen@brandeis.edu)
Boston Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI)
Boston Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI) worked with teams of educational leaders from Boston-area schools to build the schools’ capacity to provide serious, ongoing learning opportunities for teachers.
Director: Gail Zaiman Dorph
Staff: Marion Gribetz, Coordinator
Contact: Gail Zaiman Dorph (gaildorph@earthlink.net) or Marion Gribetz (mgribetz@bje.org)
Visions of Jewish Education Study Group for Educational Leaders
In 2004-2005, the Mandel Center co-sponsored an invitational study group for Jewish educational leaders in the Boston area as part of the Mandel Foundation's international Visions of Jewish Education Project. Stimulated by the publication of the groundbreaking book, Visions of Jewish Education (Fox, Scheffler and Marom, Cambridge University Press, 2003), the monthly study group examined alternative conceptions of the purposes of Jewish education and their enactment and considered the role of educational visions in the policies and practices of participants' institutions. Members of the study group were heads of DeLeT schools, participants in Boston MTEI, local alumni of the Jerusalem Fellows program or the national Mandel Teacher Educator Institute, and Mandel Center staff.
Leader: Barry Holtz
Contact: Barry Holtz (bholtz@nyc.rr.com)
Pedagogies of Jewish Studies:
The Mandel Center sponsors a set of projects that investigate the teaching of Jewish texts in various settings. These studies break new ground in the scholarship of teaching Jewish studies and other Jewish pedagogies such as hevruta learning.
The Initiative on Bridging Scholarship and Pedagogy in Jewish Studies
The Initiative on Bridging Scholarship and Pedagogy in Jewish Studies examines the intersection of scholarly knowledge and teaching practice in the teaching of Jewish Studies, and brings together teachers of Jewish studies with leading scholars around common questions.
Director: Jon A. Levisohn
Staff: Susan P. Fendrick (Senior Research Associate)
Coordinator for the Conference on Teaching Rabbinic Literature: Beth Polasky
Contact: BridgingInitiative@brandeis.edu
Beit Midrash Research Project
The Beit Midrash Research Project investigates teaching and learning in a unique professional development experiment using text study and hevruta learning.
Leaders: Orit Kent and Elie Holzer
Contact: Orit Kent (okent@brandeis.edu) or Elie Holzer (esholzer@netvision.net.il)
Multimedia Cases of Jewish Teaching and Learning
Multimedia Cases of Jewish Teaching and Learning enables talented K-12 teachers to construct web-based cases of their teaching, to be used for professional development.
Leader: Sharon Feiman-Nemser
Staff: Rachel Kulick
Contact: Marcie Quaroni (mquaroni@brandeis.edu)
Studying Pluralism in Jewish Education
Studying Pluralism in Jewish Education was a field-based pilot study, supported by the Mandel Center, of the ways in which pluralistic education is enacted in a multi-denominational Jewish high school setting.
Leader: Susan Shevitz
Staff: Rahel Wasserfall (Senior Research Associate)
Contact: Susan Shevitz (shevitz@brandeis.edu)
Other Projects:
Mandel Center faculty have leadership roles in the following projects.
Philosophy of Education Research Colloquia (PERC)
The Philosophy of Education Research Colloquia (PERC) offers a series of colloquia, open to the public, that deal broadly with educational matters from a humanistic, comparative and historical perspective.
Director: Israel Scheffler
Contact: PERC@brandeis.edu
Spencer Program for Educational Research
The Spencer Program for Educational Research at Brandeis serves to increase the visibility of education as a focus of serious research at Brandeis, supporting doctoral students in various departments and convening an ongoing seminar with participating faculty.
Co-Chairs: Joyce Antler and Sharon Feiman-Nemser
Contact: spencersem@brandeis.edu