HT Blog

[blog.sefaria.org]

Aliza Rosenbaum has been teaching Judaic Subjects to seventh and eighth grade students at Hillel Torah North Suburban Day School in Skokie, Il for seven years. She has spent much of that time experimenting in her classroom in the hopes of developing the most effective ways to teach and work with her students. In 2017, she applied for the Sefaria’s Educational Partnership Initiative to see what might happen when Sefer Devarim (Deuteronomy) goes digital.

The result, Aliza explains, was student-led learning come to life: “It’s the best – it’s how I’ve always wanted to do it.” In the past, she would select a given text, translate it, print it for her students, and they would have to respond to accompanying questions. However, it never felt to Aliza like they were truly learning as much as they could be. They were completing their coursework, to be sure, but because so much of the process was done for them, the students weren’t really owning their work. Unsurprisingly, she found that it was hard to get thoughtful answers out of them. With the introduction of Sefaria to her classroom, “it’s been a world of difference. They’re doing it on their own.”  

Indeed, while her students are learning the same one or two perakim, or chapters, of the sefer each week that students in her class always have, the process through which they learn is…see more here.