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What does it mean to design a Beit Midrash ?

Explore the concept of Beit Midrash as a learning environment, emphasizing purposeful design and the integration of core values. Delve into the practices of Text Study and Hevruta Learning, including curriculum development and evaluation. Uncover the significance of the Beit Midrash within the broader context of Jewish education.

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What does it mean to design a Beit Midrash ?

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  1. What does it mean to design a Beit Midrash? Dr. Elie Holzer Bar Ilan University and Mandel Center @ Brandeis University

  2. “Beit Midrash”: a neo-traditional phenomenon • Adult Education • High Schools and Middle Schools • Professional preparation: * Teacher education * Rabbinical Training

  3. Is this a Beit Midrash?

  4. Beit Midrash, Text Study, Hevruta learning Learned by osmosis? Buzzwords ?

  5. Why Design? • Teaching • Teachers • Need for justification

  6. What is our view of Text Study and Hevruta Learning? They are Practices: 1. Purposeful, intentional and reflectively chosen action  Concepts of Good TS and HL. 2. Theory and practice are twin moments in the same activity. 3. Knowledge arises through engagement in a social situation and interaction. 4. Require engagement, deliberate choices, interest and passion; full personality. 5. Good text study and Good Hevruta are practices (incl. skills, dispositions). They require learning.

  7. Content areas for curriculum: • The “subject matter” • The practice of Text Study • The practice of Hevruta Learning • (The practice of group discussion)

  8. Design of Good Text Study

  9. Design of Good Hevruta Learning

  10. What is our understanding of the Beit Midrash as a learning environment? 1. Purposeful, intentional and reflectively designed learning environment. 2. Reflects institution’s core values and ideas. 3. Entails dialectic between individual and collective.

  11. Design of a Beit Midrash Physical Setting a. What’s the setting like and why? b. What access to relevant information is available? ( printed, digital and human resources).

  12. Design of a Beit Midrash (cont.) Beit Midrash in Broader Context a. What are the learning purposes of Beit Midrash sessions in relation to additional learning settings? b. What and how can values, concepts and practices from other parts of the program be integrated in the Beit Midrash? c. What are Beit Midrash students to produce? How, when and where in the program, are they to make visible what they have learned? d. Differentiation: what is Beit Midrash, TS and HL good/not good for?

  13. Design of a Beit Midrash (cont.) Ex. of additional issues 1. Rationales and criteria for pairing up Hevrutot 2. Roles of leader(s) during Beit Midrash sessions 3. Ways to help create authentic “presence” in Beit Midrash learning. 4. Worksheets: form & content; guidelines VS. open inquiry 5. The impact of the literary genre on design of text study + Theoretical views of interpretation and learning.שקופית 14 6. Develop Beit Midrash’s Curriculum for learning of subject matter, text study and Hevruta learning. 7. Evaluation of Beit Midrash learning

  14. Beit Midrash, Text Study and Hevruta learning Reflects and cultivates the 2 great conversations that we “are” as Jews: • The Diachronic Conversation with the Past • The Synchronic Conversation with contemporary fellow Jews

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