Events: 2008-09

July 26-31, 2009
Culture and Identity, Past & Present:  Exploring the Jewish Experience through Texts, Films & Literature  
A Summer Teachers Institute at the University of Cincinnati
Co-Sponsored by the Mandel Center

The Summer Teachers Institute explored the place of Jewish text study in learning and teaching practices and offer a non-specialized historical and cultural studies approach to investigating the Jewish experience from the ancient period to the present, with a special emphasis on the American Jewish scene. Teachers studied primary and secondary materials in the American Jewish Archives, one of the most significant Jewish research institutions in the world. Summer Teachers Institute. Elie Holzer, senior researcher at the Mandel Center, participated in the program as an extension of his work with the Center's Beit Midrash project.

July 24, 2009
Brandeis MAT Mini-Research Conference and Graduation

As members of the MAT graduating class of 2009, DeLeT Cohort 7 presented their classroom research projects and celebrated their graduation with an assembly of  families, friends, colleagues, and faculty.

Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tekkes HaSiyum: “Celebration of Completion”

Cohort 7 designed a program for family, friends, and faculty that included reflections, thanks, text study, and song.

July 22, 2009
DeLeT Cohort 8 Community Tea

The first of a four part series, the Community Tea gave Cohort 8 the opportunity to publicly reflect on their learning. Reinforcing the belief that teaching should not be a private affair that happens behind the closed doors of a classroom, the interns were invited to share and discuss their learning from the first summer of DeLeT.

July 13-17, 2009
DeLeT Alumni Summer Institute

The first of its kind, the Alumni Summer Institute welcomed 5 local alumni for a week-long session to begin work on individual projects. Alumni supported each other as they began work on projects related to teacher development that will continue on throughout the academic year.

Sunday, June 28 – Tuesday, June 30
2009 Mandel Center Induction Partnership Summer Institute

The Induction Partnership welcomed its three new sites to the Center for a kickoff session. New school sites include:

Thursday, June 4, 2009
DeLeT Unit Fair

The DeLeT Unit Fair, an event that takes place at the close of each semester, is an opportunity for DeLeT students to share some aspect of their teaching and their learning about teaching.  This third installment for our current cohort featured teaching units developed and implemented by these interns. Further, interns  demonstrated how their learning meets the DeLeT Teaching Standards.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Developing New Teachers, Strengthening Day Schools: A Forum & Celebration

Representatives from the Induction Partnership gathered to share lessons learned and celebrate the progress that partner schools in our Induction Partnership have made in supporting their newest teachers. This event brought together Heads, Board Leaders and Induction Team Members from our Partner Schools, Community Leaders promoting Day School Excellence, and Covenant Foundation Supporters.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Mandel Center Lunchtime Seminar: "Primed for the Climb: Structural Challenges to Change in Jewish Day Schools" featuring Dr. Shani Bechhofer

  • In this presentation, Dr. Bechhofer shared results of a recently completed qualitative study of 18 Jewish day schools engaged in intensive school improvement processes.  She briefly explained the study and then reported on some of the major findings of the study, which yielded an enriched understanding of schools' developmental stages and readiness for change, and the ways in which the functioning of lay and professional leadership of schools affect their capacity to implement change.  The presentation focused special attention on four analytic categories of school capacity. She outlined the developmental challenge, typical profile, presenting issues, and best coaching strategies for each category and the type of learning and impact to be expected of schools at each level. An interactive discussion on the implications of these findings for research and interventions in Jewish day schools followed. 

March 13-16, 2009
DeLeT Alumni Conference
“MeHazon L'Metziut-From Vision to Reality: Teacher Leaders Integrating Vision into Practice.”
Read more about the conference>>

Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Mandel Center Lunchtime Seminar: "Reflections on God: Exploring Children's Reasoning about Religious Questions" featuring Dr. Howard Deitcher

  • This presentation was based on a close reading of a conversation with a small group of elementary school children from Jewish American families.  Within this dialogue we see children puzzling over issues concerning the possibility of knowledge of God, and the proper object of prayer and its limits. We explored the ways that children's theological reasoning exposes the structural basis of their thinking.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Mandel Center Lunchtime Seminar: "My Love Affair with Hebrew" featuring Professor Israel Scheffler

  • Professor Scheffler presented a short paper on his educational encounter with Hebrew. He then used this encounter to illustrate his proposal of an autobiographical interpretation of educational research. Discussion followed.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Mandel Center Lunchtime Seminar: "Jewish Women's Prayers Are Coming Home" featuring Dr. Aliza Lavie

  • Exploration of long-forgotten treasures of Jewish tradition, which reveal themselves as profoundly relevant to modern existential questioning. Jewish women's prayers, long relegated to the sidelines of history and heritage, are being restored to their proper place and becoming accessible, inspiring religious connection, communication and creativity. 

Sunday, January 25, 2009
Teacher Forum with Dr. Sarah Michaels
Accountable Talk®: Classroom Conversations that Promote Learning

  • What is “accountable talk®” in classrooms? What does it look like in action? How can teachers create classroom conversations that foster academic learning? Using video clips from elementary and middle-school classrooms, Dr. Michaels discussed the teacher actions, learning formats, and classroom norms that create productive classroom talk. A leading expert on “accountable talk®,” Dr. Sarah Michaels, senior research scholar at the Jacob Hiatt Center for Urban Education at Clark University, studies academically productive talk in math, science, and English language arts, from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.
    *Accountable Talk®, Institute for Learning, University of Pittsburgh

December 22, 2008
Brandeis University Reception at AJS Conference
Washington, DC

  • The event was sponsored by:  Brandeis University Press, The Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, The Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program, The Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, and The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry.

November 12, 2008
Mandel Center Lunchtime Seminar featuring Visiting Scholar Inbar Galili-Schachter

  • "The Teaching of Jewish Texts and Hermeneutics in Teaching" - The presentation focused on the role of the teacher as intermediary between the texts and the students. Using an in-depth case study, Inbar described how one teacher chose to interpret a text in class and discussed this interpretation in light of other alternatives.

November 11, 2008
Philosophy of Education Research Colloquia (PERC) featuring Louis M. Guenin

  • "Fundamental and Collateral Controversies concerning Embryonic Stem Cell Research" - Issues surrounding the use of embryonic cells for research have sparked heated conversation in fields from the medical to the political, in laboratories and family rooms alike. Louis Guenin explored  some of these questions as part of the ongoing PERC series.

    Louis M. Guenin, J.D. (Harvard University) is a lecturer on Ethics in Science in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He is also the author of The Morality of Embryo Use (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

October 29, 2008
Mandel Center Lunchtime Seminar featuring Dr. Elli Schachter

  • Elli Schachter led a discussion on "Identity Formation as a Central Goal of Education." The purpose of this session was to discuss what it could mean for educators to think about what they do as educating for identity. Dr. Schachter reviewed classic and contemporary perspectives on identity within psychology and then presented for discussion a model of identity education. Applicable to education in general, this model has implications for Jewish education.