21st Century Learning – Page 4 – A Floor, But Not a Ceiling

The Transparency Files: We Do More Than Plan For COVID

[NOTE: I wrote most of this post prior to our school’s first direct experience with COVID yesterday. I considered delaying or rewriting this post because I do not wish to appear cavalier or tone deaf when so many families and teachers are carrying anxiety into our first day of in-person school. However, as real – and as sad – as this “new normal” may be, it is our new normal. And I believe that part of making that true means that we will need to resume talking about things other than COVID. So without further adieu…]

There is obviously nothing more important than the safety of our students, teachers, families and community. That being said, it has been wonderful to be reminded this week why we are investing so much time and energy and so many resources to be able to both safely reopen for in-person learning and provide high-quality educational, social and spiritual experiences for distance learning. It is because we love to teach children!

So, for one blog post at least, let’s take a break from COVID safety procedures and protocols…

You may recall that despite the challenges that last spring brought us, we learned a lot through being forced into distance learning. We summarized those gleanings in a blog post that became a slogan: “Don’t go back to school; Come forward to OJCS”. You can see evidence of that growth by looking at how we are planning for 2020-2021. Let’s spend just a little time sharing what our amazing OJCS Faculty has been learning about and working on during our annual “Pre-Planning Week”. Hopefully it will leave you not only feeling comforted that your children will be safe, but feeling excited that your children will be inspired to learn, to grow and to become their best selves.

Here’s a curated selection from our activities…

The Hyflex Cafe

Each year (13 years, 4 at OJCS and counting!), I begin “Pre-Planning Week” with an updated version of the “World Cafe”. It is a collaborative brainstorming activity centered on a key question. Each year’s question is designed to encapsulate that year’s “big idea”. To no one’s surprise, this year’s big idea? Hyflex Learning!

We call it “hyflex” because we are not simply offering a “hybrid” of both in-person and distance learning; we are preparing for the flexibility of students (and teachers) switching from one to the other in both a planned and unplanned fashion. The “flex” stands for “flexibility” and that is as good an adjective for this year as any other.

“Getting Started With Hybrid Learning” with Emma Pass

Thanks to a generous grant from the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, we have been able to bring in some outside experts to work with our teachers during this week of planning. One extraordinary expert is named Emma Pass. Leaving aside the whole hybrid/hyflex thing, her session was an hourlong tour de force of all things hybrid learning that really set the table for the week. Or as our Teaching & Learning Coordinator Melissa Thompson put it:

Speed-Geeking Critical Platforms for Hyflex Learning

After having spent some time exploring the big picture, here we began to explore some critical platforms that OJCS teachers are becoming more familiar with in order to succeed in hyflex learning contexts. What do we love about speed-geeking at OJCS? That the sessions are led by our own teachers!

Let’s check out them out!

Classkick

In this session, our Kitah Alef (Grade One) Jewish Studies Teacher Morah Ada shared about Classkick. Classkick is an app that gives a teacher maximal flexibility to incorporate audio, text, video, picture into a shared document that students and teachers can edit and work on seamlessly. For example, a teacher can record herself giving video instruction, embed a PDF and ask students to record their responses all in one document. Teachers can also take pre-prepared documents (like an alef-bet chart) and designate individual letters as student manipulatives. Meaning that a student could drag an “alef” around the document and place it where it belongs.

Primary teachers can import critical documents like their calendars or job charts. Teachers can easily customize and personalize different assignments. The most exciting part of the session was the conversation between teachers. One of the goals we have as a school is to find more opportunity for our students to use their languages. Classkick makes it really easy for teachers to record themselves giving oral prompts (personalized if needed) and for students to record themselves responding. This will be a great way to build in more authentic contact time with Hebrew and French!

Flipgrid

Flipgrid is not new to OJCS, although it may be new to our new teachers. [We made heavy use of it during last year’s PIVOT, especially in the primary grades.] In this session our Grade Two General Studies Teacher Morah Lianna caught us up on all things Flipgrid. Flipgrid essentially allows students to record 90 seconds of video in response to all kinds of prompts. A teacher could ask the class to tell her all about their summer vacations, and each student would record themselves in response. Flipgrid gives you both public and private options for maximal flexibility. Flipgrid also is a great global connector since it is heavily used around the…globe! With a sea of platforms available, one question that our teachers always have to ask is which platform makes sense for which lesson or unit or subject or students? And how can we make choices that don’t overwhelm students (or parents)? (How many logins can anyone manage?)

Nearpod

Nearpod is a platform we are eager to begin using at OJCS because of how easily it allows us to factor in both synchronous and asynchronous learning. As explained by our Middle School Hebrew I Teacher Morah Ruthie, Nearpod, is a little like Classkick, but even moreso, and is intended to be a “one-stop shop” for teachers. Nearpod allows a teacher to create lessons that can be delivered by the teacher, or can be done in-class either in groups or individually, or done at home. Lessons can be guided by the teacher or offered to students to do at their own paces. And, critical for these times, lessons can be offered synchronously or asynchronously.

Of the three platforms we explored, Nearpod clearly has the most maximal utility for our teachers. They can pull content from a ton of sources, including virtual reality presentations, YouTube, Google Slides, PDFs, and just about anything and anywhere you can imagine. Teachers can use materials that they have already created, of course. Part of what makes Nearpod so powerful, however, is that it has a full and growing library of lessons across every (general studies) subject and each grade-level. You can even select lessons benchmarked according to (US) national and state standards. You can embed polls, quizzes and activities to keep students engaged and accountable. Finally, the teacher can not only track student progress, but also provide ongoing assessment.

Proficiency Approach to Hebrew Language

Here is the second place we are utilizing grant funding from JFO. As you know, we are in the middle of a major consultancy with our French Language Faculty that we call TACLEF. One thing that we have learned through that experience is how much we would like to give our Hebrew Language Faculty a similar experience. While we cannot (yet) invest in a consultancy of that magnitude, we have begun working with Orly Lavi Travish. We will work with her on the “proficiency approach” to Hebrew language instruction. Proficiency is…

…the ability to use language in real world situations in a spontaneous interaction and non-rehearsed context, and in a manner acceptable and appropriate to native speakers of the language. Proficiency demonstrates what a language user is able to do regardless of where, when, or how the language was acquired. The demonstration is independent of how the language was learned; the context may or may not be familiar; the evaluation of proficiency is not limited to the content of a particular curriculum that has been taught and learned.

Just like with French, we want our Hebrew outcomes to be real, spoken, authentic language. We want to both teach and assess language proficiency in this way. We are way farther ahead in using this approach in French (although not as far as we would like to be) than in Hebrew, but this session will hopefully be the beginning of an exciting Hebrew journey.

Did I do one of my spiritual check-ins on the topic of hitlamdut (mindfulness)? Sure did!

Did Mrs. Thompson do a great session on use of classroom blogs and student blogfolios? Yup!

Did Mrs. Bertrend and Mr. Ray take us all outdoors and show us all the ways we can use our outdoor space for recess, outdoor education and learning? Absolutely!

Did Mrs. Reichstein lead a session on creating a caring and nurturing classroom during these COVID times? You bet!

Did Mrs. Gordon go over all the guidelines and protocols and procedures and rules and mandates to keep us all safe? 100%!

Did the PTA sponsor a yummy breakfast and lunch? Yes!

Did our teachers have lots of time to meet and prepare and collaborate and organize and do all the things needed to open up school on Tuesday? And then some!

All that and much more took place during this week of planning. But at nearly 1,500 words, even I need to stop writing.

Needless to say, we are prepared to do way more than create a safe learning environment. We are prepared to develop a rigorous, creative, innovative, personalized, hyflex and ruach-filled learning experience for each and every one our precious students who we cannot wait to greet (in-person and virtually) on Tuesday morning!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday weekend and a successful launch to the 2020-2021 school year…

“Going Forward to School” – Republished from eJewish Philanthropy

[The following contains ideas from a prior blog post, but this version was published on 5/12/20 on eJewishphilanthropy.com.]

Going Forward to School

The simple truth is that we don’t know when we will return to school. We are hopeful that the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year will take place in our classrooms. We know that at some point in the future that we will return. But as Heidi Hayes Jacobs recently said, “We have to start thinking about how we don’t go back to school, but how we go forward to school.”

Amplifying Quiet/Introverted Voices

A lot of teachers are getting a chance to better know a bunch of their most interesting, funny, serious and creative students. Distance learning is unleashing and amplifying introverted voices to everyone’s benefit. A lot of teachers are going get a chance to better know a bunch of their most interesting, funny, serious and creative students. Chats, backchannels, blogs and blogfolios allow teachers and administrators to get to know our students more fully and through commentary allow us to relationship-build more meaningfully. That is why they are powerful pedagogies in normal circumstances. What is true for chats and blogs normally is now true for much of distance learning for all our students for much of our day. Distance learning may have forced us into these techniques, but our core values require us to continue to amplify quiet voices when we go forward to school.

Developing Self-Directed Learners

Distance learning – as many of our parents can vouch for – is helped tremendously when students have the skills necessary to be self-directed learners. And these skills are not exclusive to certain grades or subjects or even learning styles. According to Silvia Tolisano the skills of self-directed learning – Heutagogical Documentation, Web & Information Literacy, Choice & Voice, Curation, Tutorials, Personal Learning Network (PLN) – can and should be embedded across ages, stages, styles and curricula. They can make as much sense in a Kindergarten English lesson as they can a Grade 4 Science lesson as they can in a Grade 8 Hebrew lesson.

One could argue that the only real aim in schooling is being sure that students are capable of being able to learn how to learn. What the move to distance learning forced on us was explicitly teaching these skills to students who not have adequately mastered them yet. We are making up for lost time now out of necessity. But we should embed these skills more deeply in our curriculum when we go forward to school.

Personalized Learning

Almost more than anything else, the move to distance learning has proved the necessity and the power of personalized learning. We have no choice, but to lean into individualized instruction, personalized curriculum, and self-directed learning. To do that well, to do that at all for that matter, requires you to spend meaningful time building relationships. It can be hard to do that in a crowded classroom, but its importance comes screamingly clear through distance. The amount of time we are now spending in direct communication with students and parents about their learning, the care that is now being put into personalized learning programs will help ensure that when we do go forward to school that we will come that much closer to treating each student as if they have unique and special needs…because they do.

Strengthening (Global) Connectedness

Jewish day schools, in general, emphasize global connectedness. We’ve always maintained connections to schools in other countries and to personalities from other cultures. We leverage those relationships to speak in our languages, to engage in active citizenship, to perform acts of social justice and lovingkindness and to foster our love for the People, Land and State of Israel. In a time of social distancing, however, not only have we had to lean on our global connectedness, but we have had to learn how to foster local and school connectedness through platforms as well. When we gather as a community for a virtual Family Kabbalat Shabbat or our students learn with and from a Holocaust survivor or when we celebrate Israel’s independence as part of a global audience, we feel the power of a connected community.

But when we go forward to school, what I’ll be thinking about is how much joy our students have each (virtual) day when they get to see each other’s smiling faces. How can we use what we have learned about connectedness when distance was imposed on us all, to address school and community needs when distance is required for a few? How could we incorporate our sick classmates into daily learning? How could we incorporate parents or grandparents who are unable to be physically present, but want to be connected and involved into the life of the school?

We will – at some point – return. At that time, I hope to see lots of schools promoting “Welcome Forward” activities in recognition of all the lessons learned during these difficult times that will continue to make our schools hubs of innovation in our local and wider educational communities.

Ken y’hi ratzon.

The Coronavirus Diaries: We Won’t Go BACK To School; We Will Go Forward

Phase II of the Ottawa Jewish Community School’s Distance Learning Program launched on Monday, April 20th upon our return from Passover Break. “Phase II” came after both a “Soft Launch” and a “Phase I” and each iteration was developed based on feedback from student/parent/teacher surveys, shared experiences from schools on similar journeys (especially the ones a few weeks ahead) and best practices from educational experts. Each phase has us moving farther from simply trying to reproduce brick-and-mortar schooling in a virtual context and moving closer to creating meaningful learning experiences through distance learning.

Although the spectra on which each calibration has been based – live experiences/recorded experiences, synchronous/asynchronous, teacher-directed learning/self-directed learning, group learning/independent learning, device-dependent learning/device-free learning, etc. – remain the same, we believe that each new phase has fine-tuned the program so that the highest number of students can find the highest degree of success within the range. We know that with each family situation and each child’s learning style being highly personal that there are no one-size-fits-all programs. We believe that we have landed in the right place – for now – and that our continuous seeking of feedback and ongoing flexibility will allow for the successful navigation of individual concerns.

We don’t know when we will return to school. (Technically, the current restrictions end on May 4.) We developed and launched Phase II to accommodate schooling through the end of the school year. We would be thrilled to return sooner. We are hopeful that the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year will take place in our classrooms. We know that at some point in the future that we will return. But as one of my gurus in the field Heidi Hayes Jacobs recently said,

We have to start thinking about how we don’t go back to school, but how we go forward to school.

This quote was brought to us by our friend and colleague Silvia Tolisano, whose name you may recognize because she was one of the consultants who worked with our faculty last year on innovative pedagogies and documentation of/for/as learning, who facilitated our April Faculty Meeting this week. And like every professional development experience with Silvia (and I am lucky enough to have had a decade’s worth across two schools and four organizations), our teachers and administrators came out of it with just the right blend of feeling overwhelmed and inspired. “Overwhelmed” because Silvia is a fountain of information, pedagogies, ideas, techniques and tricks that seems impossible for any one person to learn, let alone master. “Inspired” because Silvia gives you permission to dream big dreams, encourages you to see challenges as opportunities, and urges you that the future is right around the corner with our children deserving nothing less than an education that will prepare them for their future success.

This extraordinary moment we are living, teaching and learning through will eventually end, but it would be a huge mistake to go back to school as it was when we have an opportunity to go forward to school as it ought to be. This moment, however long it lasts, is a challenge, but it is also an amazing opportunity to try learn and to try and to fail and to succeed. We are only (!) in our fourth week of distance learning, but I feel very strongly that there are five clear ways that we will want to go forward to school.

Amplifying Quiet/Introverted Voices

This is something that I recently blogged about, so I won’t repeat myself here. I will simply say that I continue to find just in my own (limited) teaching and engagement with blogs and blogfolios that the use of chat rooms, the facilitation of Google Meetings with clear and obvious rules for muting and speaking, and the use of self-recorded audio and video continues to allow me to see facets of our children’s personalities and depth of thought that would surely be lost in a healthily noisy classroom context. The feedback from teachers bear this out. Distance learning may have forced us into these techniques, but our core values – our North Stars – of “each being responsible one to the other” and “we learn better together” require us to continue to amplify quiet voices when we go forward to school.

Developing Self-Directed Learners

This category comes directly from Silvia and was the focus of her time with our teachers this week. Distance learning – as many of our parents can vouch for – is helped tremendously when students have the skills necessary to be self-directed learners. And these skills are not exclusive to certain grades or subjects or even learning styles. Our teachers have already begun thinking about how the skills you see below can make as much sense in a Kindergarten English lesson as they can a Grade 4 French lesson as they can in a Grade 8 Hebrew lesson.

One could argue (and one has!) that the only real aim in schooling is being sure that students are capable of being able to learn how to learn. What the move to distance learning forced on us was explicitly teaching these skills to students who not have adequately mastered them yet. We are making up for lost time now out of necessity. But we cannot truly embody our core values – our North Stars – of “We own our learning” unless we embed these skills more deeply in our curriculum when we go forward to school.

Digital Citizenship

Digital Citizenship is already something we invest a great deal of energy in at OJCS because of what we believe to be true about teaching and learning. However, the shift to distance learning has revealed some gaps and some delays in our workshops and curriculum. Our teachers, working together with our amazing Librarian, Brigitte Ruel, are filling those gaps in the present and will work to make them permanent features of #TheOJCSWay when we go forward to school.

Personalized Learning

Almost more than anything else, the move to distance learning has proved the necessity and the power of personalized learning. We have no choice, but to lean into individualized instruction, personalized curriculum, and self-directed learning. We can’t live our North Star of “a floor, but no ceiling” without fulfilling this promise – that we will know each student in our school well enough to lovingly inspire them to reach their maximum potential academically, socially, and spiritually. To do that well, to do that all for that matter, requires you to spend meaningful time building relationships. It can be hard to do that in a crowded classroom, but its importance comes screamingly clear through distance. The amount of time we are now spending in direct communication with students and parents about their learning, the care that is now being put into personalized learning programs will help ensure that when we do go forward to school that we will come that much closer to treating each student as if they have unique and special needs…because they do.

Strengthening (Global) Connectedness

Jewish day schools in general and OJCS in particular emphasize global connectedness. We’ve always maintained connections to schools in other countries and to personalities from other cultures. We leverage those relationships to speak in our three languages, to engage in active citizenship, to perform acts of social justice and lovingkindness, to participate in our city, provincial and federal discourse and to foster our love for the People, Land and State of Israel.

In a time of social distancing, however, not only have we had to lean on our global connectedness, but we have had to learn how to foster local and school connectedness through platforms as well. We cannot live our North Stars of “ruach” and “being on inspiring Jewish journeys” during a time of distancing without it. When we gather as a community for a virtual Family Kabbalat Shabbat or our students learn with and from a Holocaust survivor or when we celebrate Israel’s independence as part of a global audience, we feel the power of a connected community.

Sooner than later – hopefully sooner! – we really will be returning. We look forward to enjoying a hot dog and the physical company of new and returning families…at the 2020-2021 OJCS PTA Welcome Forward BBQ.

Ken y’hit ratzon.

The Coronavirus Diaries: A Fifth Question for a Pandemic Passover

As was true in last week’s post, we continue to navigate uncharted territory – at home, at work and here in school. As we close out Phase I of the OJCS Distance Learning Program this week and prepare to launch Phase II on Monday, April 20th – with no way to predict how long we will be in it – we are doing our best to approximate and innovate the kinds of Passover programming one would typically expect to find in a Jewish day school headed into its Passover Break. We may not have had the kinds of model sedarim we would typically run, but we did have lots of experiences, singalongs, show-and-tell’s and other creative ways to bring the (virtual) joy of the season into our students’ homes and families. I continue to be equal parts grateful and awestruck by what our teachers are able to create and what our families are capable of doing.

I mentioned last week, that one outcome of social distancing during Passover is that many of us may be leading our first seders in quite a while. That’s why I gave my “New and Revised for COVID-19 Top 10 Tips for Planning a Seder Too Good to Passover” and I hope they were helpful. There is one tradition for upgrading and updating a seder that I have highlighted in the past, that I would also like to revisit and reframe for the times we are living in.

It has become a tradition for organizations to use the pedagogy of Passover to advocate for causes. We can change customs (“The Four Children”), add customs (“Miriam’s Cup), or adjust customs. One common adjustment is the addition of a “Fifth Question”. In addition to the traditional “Four Questions,” we add one to address important issues of the day. You can go online and find a myriad of examples of “fifth questions” that deal with everything from gun violence, hunger, drought, Israel, peace, etc. You can find a “fifth question” for almost every cause.

Of course sometimes the questions and the conversations they inspire are more important than the answers…

As we collectively prepare to celebrate our fragile freedoms in a time of pandemic and social distancing, I would like to share with you some of my “fifth questions”:

Jon’s “Fifth Questions” for Passover 5780

Head of the Ottawa Jewish Day School: Why is this conversation about OJCS different than all other ones?

Jewish Day School Practitioner: How will I take the things that were positive, successful, innovative, relationship-building, personalizing, differentiated, globally-connected, quiet/introvert-amplifying and meaningful about working in a distance learning program and incorporate them into schooling when we return to school?

Israel Advocate: How can I be inspired by the words, “Next Year in Jerusalem,” to inspire engagement with Israel during a time when I am unable to visit?

American Expatriate in Canada: What can I learn from how my current home is approaching COVID-19 that would be of value to colleagues, family and friends in the States?

Parent: How will I take advantage of all the extra time that I am getting with my children during a time of social distancing (#COVID19SilverLinings)? What new routines (#DaddyDaughterPE) will I try to incorporate into my parenting when things go back to normal?

What are some of your “Fifth Questions” this year?

Wishing you a chag kasher v’sameach…

You Can’t Count On Uncle Moishy This Year – NEW & REVISED Tips for Planning Your Pandemic Seder Too Good to Passover

In the rush to figure out how to work, study and live in this time of social distancing, it may just now be occurring to you that if your family is going to have a meaningful Passover Seder this year, that is actually going to be up to you to plan and lead it! If you have been lucky (that may not be the right adjective for each family) enough to be a guest at someone else’s seder for years and years, you haven’t had to take responsibility for anything other than showing up (and hopefully helping to clean the dishes). During this year’s Pandemic Passover, when each family is likely looking at an intimate family experience, whatever kind of seder is going to happen, is going to happen because of you.

But don’t worry! This blog post that you have likely ignored each year, is right here again, ready and updated for just such an emergency!

The first time I took responsibility for leading the seder from my father (of blessed memory), I was in the middle of my studies at the University of Judaism (now American Jewish University) and deeply immersed in Jewish text and learning. I was eager to discuss the history of the traditions, ready to parse language, prepared to study the midrash, excited to sing the traditional liturgy and totally misread the room. I had a great seder, but I’m pretty sure no one else did! But over lots of time and practice, I have mostly kind of figured out how to blend the traditional structure, text, prayers and songs along with newer innovations and customs into something that makes sense for the ranges of ages and backgrounds who come to my mother’s table each year in Las Vegas.

This year, however, our seder table – like most, if not all, of yours – will now be reduced to my immediate family and so even I am rethinking my plans. The seder is still a wonderful opportunity for families to spend time doing something they still might not otherwise do—talk with one another! The seder was originally designed to be an interactive, thought-provoking, and enjoyable experience, so let’s see how we might increase the odds for making that true, even in this most unusual of years.

Without further adieu, here are my revised top ten suggestions on how to make this year’s seder a more positive and meaningful experience:

1. Tell the Story of the Exodus

The core mitzvah of Passover is telling the story. Until the 9^th century, there was no clear way of telling the story. In fact, there was tremendous fluidity in how the story was told. The printing press temporarily put an end to all creativity of how the story was told. But we need not limit ourselves to the words printed in the Haggadah. [This may be especially true if you have not been hosting Passover and don’t actually have haggadot. Mine are with my Mom – so, we are dusting off some vintage ones this year. If you Google “online haggadot” you will find lots of options.] This could be done by means of a skit, game, or informally going around the table and sharing each person’s version of the story.

If there are older members at the table, this might be a good time to hear their “story,” and perhaps their “exodus” from whichever land they may have come. If your older members are not able to be with you this year, you might wish to consider asking them write or record their stories, which you could incorporate into your seder (depending on your level of observance). There will surely be lots of families who will be using technology to expand their seder tables to include virtual friends and families – again depending on your level of observance you could consider beginning elements of your seder before candle-lighting to incorporate this element.

2. Sing Songs

If your family enjoys singing, the seder is a fantastic time to break out those vocal cords! In addition to the traditional array of Haggadah melodies, new English songs are written each year, often to the tunes of familiar melodies. Or just spend some time on YouTube! Alternatively, for the creative and adventurous souls, consider writing your own!

3. Multiple Haggadot

For most families, I would recommend choosing one haggadah to use at the table. This is helpful in maintaining consistency and ensuring that everyone is “on the same page.” Nevertheless, it is also nice to have extra haggadot available for different commentaries and fresh interpretations. Of course, this year, you may be getting by with whatever you can find around the house or what you can get from Amazon Prime! But don’t let that inhibit you from moving forward – the core elements are essentially the same from one to the other. Let the differences be opportunities for insight not frustration.

4. Karpas of Substance

One solution to the “when are we going to eat” dilemma, is to have a “karpas of substance.” The karpas (green vegetable) is served towards the beginning of the seder, and in most homes is found in the form of celery or parsley. In truth, karpas can be eaten over any vegetable over which we say the blessing, “borei pri ha’adamah,” which praises God for “creating the fruit from the ground.” Therefore, it is often helpful to serve something more substantial to hold your guests over until the meal begins. Some suggestions for this are: potatoes, salad, and artichokes.

When candle-lighting times are late or children’s patience runs short, you should try to eat your gefilte fish before the seder.

5. Assign Parts in Advance

In order to encourage participation in your seder, you may want to consider giving your partner and children a little homework. Ask them to bring something creative to discuss, sing, or read at the table. This could be the year you go all in and come in costume – dress like an ancient Israelite or your favorite plague – your kids can’t worry about being embarrassed in front of their friends this year!

6. Know Your Audience

This one seems kinda obvious this year…if you don’t your family by now, we can’t really help you by Passover.

7. Fun Activities

Everyone wants to have a good time at the seder. Each year, try something a little different to add some spice to the evening. Consider creating a Passover game such Pesach Family Feud, Jewpardy, or Who Wants to be an Egyptian Millionaire?! Go around the table and ask fun questions with serious or silly answers.

8. Questions for Discussion

Depending on the ages of your children, this one may be hard to calibrate, but because so often we are catering to the youngest at the table, it is easy to forget that an adult seder ought to raise questions that are pertinent to the themes found in the haggadah. For example, when we read “ha lachma anya—this is the bread of affliction,” why do we say that “now we are slaves?” To what aspects of our current lives are we enslaved? How can we become free? What does it mean/what are the implications of being enslaved in today’s society?

We read in the haggadah, “in each generation, one is required to see to onself as if s/he was personally redeemed from Egypt.” Why should this be the case? How do we go about doing that? If we really had such an experience, how would that affect our relationship with God?

One assumes – and I’ll have more to say about this next week – that the current situation may raise new questions or may cause us to view familiar text and traditions in new ways. As you read through the haggadah, push yourself to ask these type of questions, and open them up for discussion.

9. Share Family Traditions

Part of the beauty of Passover, is the number of fascinating traditions from around the world. This year, in particular, is a great opportunity to begin a new tradition for your family. One family I know likes to go around the table and ask everyone to participate in filling the cup of Elijah. As each person pours from his/her cup into Elijah’s, s/he offers a wish/prayer for the upcoming year. What are you going try this year?

10. Preparation

The more thought and preparation given to the seder, the more successful the seder will be. That may feel challenging or overwhelming this year, but however much time and attention you can put into your planning, you won’t regret it. If you are an OJCS (or Jewish day school family), lean on your children – you paid all this money for a high-quality Jewish education, put them to work! Most importantly, don’t forget to have fun.

Next week, we’ll revisit the tradition of adding a “Fifth Question” in light of current circumstances.

The Coronavirus Diaries: Distance Learning Amplifies Introverted Voices

Let’s say you have 20 students in a class and you have 1 hour available to teach. If all that happened during that period was giving each student an opportunity to speak, each student would have three minutes of airtime. That’s if the teacher doesn’t say a single word, if the entire lesson was given over to student voice, and each student spoke for the exact same length of time. Since that never happens, if you did the math, how much time do you think a teacher actually spends hearing directly from his or her most shy/introverted/speech-challenged students during an average lesson? Or during an average day, week, month or year?

I was chatting with a colleague yesterday and we were comparing notes about what good is coming from our schools being forced to go entirely virtual for an unknown length of time. We were able to come up with a pretty robust list – facility with new pedagogies/platforms and increased emphasis on differentiation/personalization immediately leapt to mind. But what I want to focus on here is another unintended benefit of going remote – a #COVID19SilverLining so says the trending hashtag – the opportunity to hear the voices that are oftentimes drowned out or kept silent by the normal course of schooling. A lot of teachers are going get a chance to better know a bunch of their most interesting, funny, serious and creative students. Distance learning is going to unleash and amplify introverted voices to everyone’s benefit.

In a blog post a few weeks back where I (re)introduced you to our student blogfolios, I said that:

But what I enjoy seeing the most is the range of creativity and personalization that expresses itself through their aesthetic design, the features they choose to include (and leave out), and the voluntary writing.

And that is totally true. But what is also true, is that reading student voices or watching student videos or viewing student artwork through their blogfolios unlocks voices and personalties that don’t always come through in face-to-face engagement. There are students who have extraordinary senses of humor and who are brilliantly creative and I had no idea! Blogs and blogfolios allow teachers and administrators to get to know our students more fully and through commentary allow us to relationship-build more meaningfully. That is why they are powerful pedagogies in normal circumstances. What is true for blogs and blogfolios normally is now true for much of distance learning for all our students for much of our day.

The nature of the beast is that distance learning reduces the amount of frontal and whole-class learning (although it still has a place) and increases the amount of small-group and individual learning. Those latter forms of learning still happen across a variety of platforms – live in Google Meeting, independently at home, postings on blogs/blogfolios/GoogleDocs, etc. – but they all allow for, or really require, more individual contact time between teacher and student.

We are just three days into the OJCS Distance Learning Program. Our soft launch is concluding today with student and parent surveys. All that we learned this week will be factored into the launch of Phase I, which begins on Monday and will last for two weeks. Our students and our parents and our teachers are overwhelmed and exhausted and proud and exhilarated all at the same time. We have already gained so much from having this experience. But one of the biggest gains has come in our teachers’ ability to better know and to spend more time with the students they not have the bandwidth to lean into when we have crowded rooms and limited time.

We are all anxious to know if and when we are going to return to brick-and-mortar schooling. But what we are learning about how to reach all our students, how to ensure all voices are heard, and the enhanced relationships that come as a result of new methods – all of that has to come with us when we do return. If we can learn from this experience how to unleash the passion and talents of all our students – loud and quiet – well, that would be one heckuva #COVID19SilverLining.

The Coronavirus Diaries: The Launch Begins!

I promise that I will not be live-blogging each day of the OJCS Distance Learning Program! But to the degree that it is helpful to document the soft launch – both for us and for fellow travelers – and because it is going to be a bit of “hurry up and wait” for the administration now that virtual classes have begun, I thought it would be good to show a little of what things actually look like.

The spine of our program is the OJCS Blogosphere. This was in the process of becoming true before the pandemic because of all the things we believe to be true about teaching and learning in the 21st century. It is really proving its worth now that we have had to transition to distance learning on a dime. Just a quick look at the screenshot above – or a quick jump on the link – will show you how our teachers have immediately pivoted. The action is going to take place online; the architecture is anchored in classroom blogs and student blogfolios.

How did Grade 8, for example, start its day? Glad you asked!

How did our amazing Librarian already begin serving not just our school, but our entire community? #OJCSStoryTime anyone?

How does it look from a parent/student perspective?

And the sound outside my daughter’s “classroom”:

You get the idea; these are just from the first hours, more and more are coming as the day begins. You can see it all on our different social media channels.

What else am I seeing?

I am seeing lots of teachers supporting other teachers. Sharing live experiences with Google Meet, using internal Google Hangout for quick references, administrators popping in and out of “virtual” classrooms, etc.

I am seeing that in some families the anxiety starting to lift as the unknown becomes known. But I am not naive enough to believe that this is true for all families. Our concern and attention is going to move soon from the families and students we are engaged with to the ones we aren’t. That will become more pressing as we move from the soft launch this week to Phase 1 after this week to the ever-more-likely Phase 2 after Passover.

What else is important during this week’s soft launch?

Preaching patience! We chose a soft launch on purpose. We know that some things are going to work well right away; some things are going to work once we’ve had enough time to practice; and some things aren’t going to work at all and we’ll have to adjust. We are going to use these three days to figure out what belongs in which bucket.

Is Google Meet/Hangout going to ultimately prove successful with its limitations in muting and viewing the whole class?
How will we support students and/or parents for whom this transition proves to be more challenging?
How will we support teachers for whom this transition proves to be more challenging?
Will we need to add structured tutorials to our website/blogosphere on targeted topics (how to use Google Meet, how to submit work through GoogleDocs, etc.)?
How will we continue to live our North Stars? We can see lots of examples of them already in play, but once the novelty and excitement (and stress and anxiety) wears off and we settle in, will we find opportunities for ruach? Will we continue being “on inspiring Jewish journeys”?

In just the two hours or so since I opened this blog, I have been following the emails, tweets, Facebook posts, and chats of teachers, parents and students. I remain in awe of what we have all managed to accomplish here in such a short amount of time. Let’s keep sharing with each other and with the wider world. Let’s keep creating space for mistakes and anxiety. Let’s keep celebrating small victories and minor miracles. Let’s combat the social recession with creative social experiences. Let’s live our school’s North Stars and our community’s Jewish values in this new virtual reality.

We are definitely taking it one day at a time…but it has been a pretty special day one so far.

The Coronavirus Diaries: School-At-Home ≠ Homeschool

How quickly the world turns…

Four days ago, we were celebrating Ruach Week and I was dressed like a pirate. Today, we are preparing to launch the OJCS Distance Learning Program and I am dressed like a teenager. Four days ago, we weren’t sure if we were going to close. Today, we aren’t sure if we are going to reopen.

I cannot believe how quickly things have moved and I cannot believe how quickly our school and our teachers have mobilized a response. Sure we had started talking about what would need to be true for us to go live with a distance learning program, but even I wouldn’t have thought we’d be able to switch tracks on a dime. [I am just as impressed with how our entire Jewish Community has responded, led by Andrea Freedman and our Jewish Federation.] But I am most impressed by our parents. With all the challenges of transitioning to telecommuting, preparing for creative childcare, and just the nuts and bolts of being at home for a sustained period of time – plus balancing all the anxiety and concern that is so understandable – we have been so blessed to see such positive attitudes and growth mindsets.

Maybe I am still getting used to #CanadaNice, but to all the people who have found time to express their appreciation for the work the school has been doing, please know that it is greatly appreciated. Please also know that it takes our entire team of teachers and staff to make this happen and they are just as worthy, if not more, for your appreciation.

If you thought 1,000+ words in a blog post is fun, you must really be enjoying my daily emails! I imagine that once we launch that the email traffic (at least from me) will recede, but we are trying to strike the right balance between sharing too much and sharing too little. I am also trying to find my balance between what information belongs here, in my blog, and what can remain contained to direct email. I don’t want my blog to be repetitive for parents, but there is a wider audience I want looped into our work. (Why? Because of the “moral imperative of sharing”. We learn from other schools and other schools learn from us.)

So in this section, I am going to cherrypick the most salient issues from parent emails. If you have already read them, feel free to jump to the next section.

As previously stated, our Department of Special Needs is reaching out to each family of a child who has a support plan or IEP to discuss how we are going to continue to support and make accommodations during this transition.
We spoke today with Shannon Lavalley, our school’s psychotherapist, and she wanted to share out a few things…

…as JFS plans its transition to e-counseling, Shannon’s individual sessions with OJCS students is on hold. She will be directly in contact with those families to discuss next steps once they have worked out their logistical concerns.

…we will be adding a blog for Shannon in the days ahead. This is where Shannon can and will share out global advice and resources for OJCS families during this challenging time. In the meanwhile, she recommends:

Resource for adults and parents: https://www.virusanxiety.com/
Resource for parents: https://www.cmho.org/blog/blog-news/6519918-talking-to-your-anxious-child-about-covid-19

We are beginning to think about how our special school community can help ward off the coming social recession as social distancing kicks in. Our PTA is brainstorming virtual social opportunities and calling on parents who have bandwidth to email the PTA ([email protected]) with proposed day/time/subject. We are thinking about things like, “PTA Happy Hour” on Thursday at 4:00 PM. Or “Family Passover Baking” or “Adult Yoga” or “Managing Children’s Anxiety”. We would love a blend of fun and practical ideas; #TheOJCSDifference isn’t just for students.

Our main story today, however, is about structuring a learning environment conducive to the OJCS Distance Learning Program. Or as the blog post title suggests, what does it mean for students to participate in a “school at home” program and not homeschooling?

The biggest difference is that we do not wish for parents to have to serve as teachers. The majority of our parents will, themselves, be trying to figure out how to perform their own jobs by remote and are not educators. We aren’t putting together plans and activities for our parents to facilitate with their children. We plan on providing schooling itself, albeit through a creative blend of live, remote and at-home experiences.

Let’s name that depending on people’s homes, access to devices, techno-comfort, childcare needs, etc., etc., that very few homes will be operating in what we would consider to be an “optimal environmental setting”.

What is an optimal environmental setting?

The ideal, which we imagine very few families will be able to navigate, has each OJCS student in your family logged in and actively engaged throughout his or her school day. That they are alone in a room with a device that allows them to participate in all the live experiences, while having access to their books and materials to participate in all the remote experiences. That when the schedule calls for breaks, that healthy snacks are available. That when the schedule calls for physical activity, that materials or space is available. That those who have enough executive functioning skills will be able to self-navigate and that those who do not will have enough access to an adult to find success.

Will that be equally true for each student in each grade in each family?

For sure no! That’s why we are building care and concern, flexibility and freedom, attendance and accountability into the system. It is also why we will be surveying families along the way to see what we can do to make things easier or more effective when we can.

Can we talk about screen time?

Let’s name that we will all need to be more flexible in our understandings of “screen time”. Opting for a screen when lots of IRL (“in real life”) experiences were available was never our goal at OJCS. But now that we are living in the “upside-down” it is possible that use of technology will provide our students with more and richer IRL experiences, that through technology we can combat social isolation with conversation, faces and laughter. All “screen time” was not, and definitely now, is not equal.

Family Kabbalat Shabbat is best done with us all together in the Chapel. But live-streaming it this Friday, through a screen, is going to be way better than not having it all! (Hope you join me!)

Tomorrow, we launch a new chapter in our school’s journey. Whether it winds up being a three-week, five-week or rest-of-the-school-year journey is not yet clear. What is clear, however, is that because of the work that our talented teachers have been putting into their professional growth over the last three year, the Ottawa Jewish Community School is ready to meet this moment. Let’s be sure to give each other permission to feel anxious or scared. Let’s recognize that we will have both failures and successes in the weeks ahead. Let’s create space for the messy learning and schedule challenges and conflicts.

This chapter in our journey may have been totally unexpected, but it does not delay us from our ultimate destination. We have been saying for years that the “future of education” is happening at OJCS. The future begins tomorrow.

The Coronavirus Diaries: And So It Begins…

Today was amongst the proudest of my entire professional career. No one is looking for a pandemic to justify everything one believes to be true about teaching and learning and nothing about school closures is worthy of celebration.

But.

Our teachers and our school were made for this moment.

With only a few weeks of prior planning, we seamlessly transitioned into an entire day of PD and meetings to finalize the soft launch of our OJCS Distance Learning Program for next week. We met both by grade level and by subject matter to lay out the when and the what as well as the how to navigate this new world that we are entering. We met on Zoom and on GoogleHangout. We created calendars, schedules, resources, links, folders and drives. Our teachers were professional and prepared. Sure, they – like you – are anxious, but they are also in good spirits because all the work we have done over the last two years and more have uniquely prepared us for moving to remote learning on a dime. We did not invest time and resources in new platforms and pedagogies because we ever could have imagined a school closure of this nature. We did not pioneer blogs and blogfolios because we thought we’d need to build a Distance Learning Program around them. But boy are we happy we have done all that and more in times like these…

For the non-OJCS parents who read my blog and who may already be in closure or preparing for it, here is a snippet of what we shared out today:

“(I)n light of the decision of fellow Jewish day schools in Ontario and to remain abundantly cautious, we have taken the step to close school through April 20th. We will reassess as we get closer to Passover Break as to when and how to physically reopen.

Here is what it means.

The school building will be open on Monday, March 16th. This is to provide teachers and students with an opportunity to come and retrieve all the books, devices, materials, etc., that will be needed to navigate the OJCS Distance Learning Program that will launch. The Library will be open from 9:00 – 2:00 PM for anyone who needs to stock up on library books. We understand and respect that not everyone may feel comfortable reentering the building, but please know that according to Public Health there is no additional risk involved. Please additionally know that the Campus took advantage of today’s closure to do a deep clean if that provides added comfort. [Let me take a moment to personally thank Andrea Freedman and Federation who have been tremendous partners during this difficult moment.]

We will be sending out schedules for the soft launch of our OJCS Distance Learning Program by the end of day on Monday.

We will be holding a Virtual Parent Town Hall to explain the OJCS Distance Learning Program on Tuesday, March 17th at 7:00 PM. (Link to follow.)

We will soft launch the OJCS Distance Learning Program on Wednesday, March 18th.

We will officially launch the OJCS Distance Learning Program on Monday, March 23rd.

Additionally, report cards will go home electronically on Monday and we will encourage families wishing for Parent-Teacher Conferences to either use the existing schedule for phone conversations or to reach out and schedule directly with your child(ren)’s teacher(s).”

I am so incredibly proud of our teachers who have put this program together professionally and quickly. Each day will have structure, accountability, learning and experiences. There will be a blend of live experiences, recorded experiences, links, etc., that are age- and subject-appropriate. We recognize that there will be childcare and technological challenges to work through and are prepared to navigate both with the utmost flexibility and care. Although we will need to lean into technology, please know that we do not expect any child to be in front of a screen or a device the whole day long. There will be lots of structured activities that do not require technology, although the technology will likely be the jumping off point.

Most importantly, is that we will be providing high-quality secular, Jewish and French education and experiences that ensure that our graduates are prepared for success in Grade 9 and that all our students are adequately prepared to be promoted into their next grade level.

These are the times where I feel grateful to be part of such an extraordinary community of teachers, students, parents and institutions. Working and pulling together, we will ensure that we are safe and that the learning continues. And that is truly and emphatically #TheOJCSDifference.

I will be using “The Coronavirus Diaries” as a way of sharing out broader issues to our parents, our local community and the community of Jewish and secular educators who read my blog. I will have thoughts and advice to share with parents about how to structure time and space to facilitate distance learning. I will have thoughts and advice to share with teachers and colleagues about how to run an educational institution by remote. (First tip – don’t let yourself go to the kitchen every time you are hungry.) I will also hope that as people have no choice, but to be more engaged in use of blogs during these times, that people will begin to comment and share resources here and elsewhere. It will take a virtual village to get us through and I believe deeply in the “moral imperative of sharing”. I will share with you…and I hope you share with me.

Be safe. Be smart. But don’t panic. We will come out of this stronger and better teachers and schools as a result.

Update: Impact of TACLEF on French Faculty

We are about 1/4 of the way through our major French consultancy with the Centre Franco-Ontarien de Ressources Pédagogiques (Franco-Ontarian Centre for Educational Resources) or CFORP to implement the TACLEF program at the Ottawa Jewish Community School. (Please know that our work with TACLEF is generously supported by a grant from the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.) We thought it was an appropriate time to share back a little about what impacts the training has had, thus far, on our French faculty and program. If you want a reminder or a refresher on why we felt it necessary to engage this consultancy and what its aims and deliverables are, I encourage you to read the post from last year that describes it great detail.

Instead of my usual delivery, I thought it would be more helpful to frame this discussion as an edited “Q & A” that I had with our senior-most French teacher, Mr. Cinanni, who teaches Middle School Extended French at OJCS.

How has the consultancy impacted your ability to assess students?

It has allowed us to focus on reading, writing and oral communication in equal parts, which we have not always been able to do (or even thought possible). We have definitely adjusted evaluation methods since beginning with TACLEF.

How has the consultancy impacted your ability to differentiate or personalize the learning?

It completely supports us in doing so. Each student has his/her own strengths and weaknesses, and TACLEF – if used properly as an assessment tool – will identify these and then offer (almost too) many suggestions on how to work on those weaknesses. We have also noticed that there may be groups of students who share the same gaps (e.g. a lack of “enriched vocabulary”) which allows us to prepare activities/lessons that many students need and will benefit from together.

How has TACLEF impacted teaching and learning in your classrooms?

As stated, the greatest impact is ensuring that all three strands (reading, writing and oral communication) are built into almost every activity and evaluation. It has also given us new resources and strategies for delivery of instruction, classwork, and homework (in addition to evaluation).

How might TACLEF help us best prepare students for French immersion in Grade 9?

By providing us with a detailed roadmap, we can prepare all our students – particularly the ones who land in Extended French – as if they were going into French immersion. It is too soon to be more specific, but over the remaining 3/4 of the consultancy we will have greater clarity about how to adapt our program (with what supporting curricular materials we will need) to prioritize that outcome.

Is there anything else of consequence to note at this time?

We have already been able to use TACLEF assessments to better answer questions and concerns from individual parents and to better meet the needs of individual learners. It gives us a taste of what is to come, but we can already see that the quality of our conversations with parents has been elevated due to this work. We believe it will make the decision-making around Core/Extended placements more objective, more scientific and more successful.

On a related note, our annual alumni surveys for students in Grades 9 & 12 are going out in the next week or so. We like to wait until finals are complete because we think it helps (Grade 9) alumni (and their parents) better provide feedback on how well (or not) OJCS prepared them. We include a number of questions about French in those surveys and we will report back (either an update to this post or in some other way) what we learn.

If you have more questions or concerns about French at OJCS, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We know how important this topic is for a meaningful number of current and prospective families. It would be our pleasure to provide more detail in conversation.

On an unrelated note, with new admissions and re-enrollment packets now out, I want to strongly recommend that anyone who has questions about the financial side of things to please make an appointment with me to discuss. It is my role to shepherd families through the process and oftentimes I can help a family better navigate the system – particularly for folk who will be seeking tuition assistance. It would be my pleasure to sit with anyone to help better understand how the system works and what, historically, has best positioned families to be viewed in the most positive light. If this is a source of anxiety or concern for any family – or a reason why a family may or may not choose to enroll or re-enroll – I strongly urge you to come in for a private conversation. We have a long history of generosity that our donors, supporters and Federation have helped ensure and we will continue to work hard to ensure that financial considerations not be the determining factor for whether or not a child can receive a Jewish day school education.