Welcome to Hidden Sparks Without Walls. We will be starting shortly…

1. Welcome to Hidden Sparks Without Walls. We will be starting shortly… • While we are waiting to begin please practice using the chat feature by sharing your name, school and location. Activate chat by clicking the “Chat” tab below the attendees list on the right of your screen. Enter your communication and click on “Send.” • If you have any clarifying questions about the format or the topic, you may click on the “Q&A” tab below the presenter list and enter your questions. Feel free to use the hand raising feature, by clicking on the little yellow hand on the right side of the screen. • Don’t hesitate to engage as active, full participants. Your contributions may help others. • Be aware of your air time.

2. “How Do They Do That?!” Exploring Learning in the Jewish Studies Curriculum -Part 3- With Rabbi Shmuel Schwarzmer June 3, 2009

3. Welcome & Conference Etiquette Below are some tips that will help make this conference call successful.  • Use the right phone. - Cell phones can be included in conference calls, but some can also cause static on the lines. Try to use a landline phone if possible. Speakerphones pick up a lot of background noise. If you use one, mute it whenever possible. • Participate in a quiet, undisturbed room.  – Background noise can be heard through the phone and will disturb others in the conference. If you can’t find a quiet room, use your phone’s mute button until you want to speak – and avoid distracting noises such as humming, scraping chairs, tapping a pencil, etc. • Never Put a Conference Call on Hold! - Participants will be forced to listen to your on-hold music or they will not know that you have stepped away and may continue to address you while you're gone. • Call Waiting - The sound of your call-waiting beep can be disruptive and confusing to conference call participants. Quite often the Call Waiting function can be temporarily suspended by touching *70 prior to the call. • Identify Yourself - When you first enter the call and when you ask a question please identify yourself by name and school or state on-line. • Chat Room & Question/Answer Box – Those participating on line may use the chat room and question/answer box on the lower right of their screen to enter questions and comments at any time.  We will offer regular opportunities for those joining by phone only to participate as well.

4. Our Guest: Rabbi Shmuel Schwarzmer Rabbi Shmuel Schwarzmer, MEd, has worked as a school psychologist in the Los Angeles Unified School District for the past 20 years. He currently provides consultative services to teachers, parents and administrators of the Yeshivas and Day Schools in the Los Angeles area, focusing on improving the performance of struggling students. Prior to that he was a Rebbe in Yeshiva of Los Angeles for six years, and has been a facilitator for the Schools Attuned program of the All Kinds of Minds Institute for the past ten years. Currently, Rabbi Schwarzmer is also working with the faculty of California State University - Northridge to adapt the work of other education innovators to meet the needs of Yeshiva and Day School Faculty.

5. In Our Last Two Sessions… We reviewed a method of analyzing how students learn and work, in a way that leads to uncovering and developing practical interventions for helping students who struggle in their Limudei Kodesh subjects, including Kriah. We applied this method to looking at how we choose to teach a Chumash lesson, demonstrating how the Neurodevelopmental Demands change as a result of our teacher choices. We also explored the Neurodevelopmental demands of Chumash, focusing on techniques we can employ to accommodatethe student’s needs, which would enable them to still gain from the lesson despite the presence of some learning challenges. We introduced some tools that teachers could use when teaching Chumash, that can be helpful to students who struggle with Active Working Memory or Language weakness.

6. Sharing Success Please indicate in the Chat section of your screen, or by speaking up, if you would like to share your experience applying what we learned in your classroom. You may want to tell us about: • A student with difficulties in Chumash that you were able to observe and what you noticed • A change you may have made in how you were remediating a known Chumash challenge • A new approach to Chumash that you tried to implement in your classroom • An “Ah – Ha” you may have experienced, either during the previous session or later on as you processed what you heard

7. Point to Ponder Saying, “ I taught it, but they didn’t learn it” makes as much sense as saying “I sold it, but they didn’t buy it”

8. Goals of This Session • Review successes and questions related to our last session • To apply the Neurodevelopmental analysis process to the learning of Gemara • To use this analysis to explore some common approaches to teaching Gemara • To introduce some additional targeted accommodations for struggling students • To practice differential diagnosis to better understand how our kids learn

9. Is This a Good Idea? You are asked to teach your students a whole new area of study. Oh, by the way, there are some unique aspects to this new subject: • Text is Difficult to Access and Navigate • Written in a New Language • Many Words and Ideas Implied, not Stated • No Punctuation • New Ways of Thinking • Multi-Step Processes to Mentally Manage • Longer Strings of Information to Process • Relevance • Materials Management GOOD LUCK!!!

10. Neurodevelopmental Demands in Gemara What Neurodevelopmental Skills do kids need to access the most when learning Gemara? Think about your own Gemara Learning experience as you look at the next slide, and answer these two questions: • Why does the Gemara reject the obvious understanding of the Mishna? • According to the Gemara’s answer, what would be an example of the first category in the Mishna?

12. Neurodevelopmental Skills Needed for Learning Gemara

13. Neurodevelopmental Skills Needed for Learning Gemara • Temporal-Sequential Organization • Spatial Organization • Remembering all the steps in a multi-step Sugya • Being able to mentally maneuver from the beginning to the middle of an Inyan and back • Recognize patterns in similarly structured Sugyas • Visualizing cases • Envisioning how the information might be mentally organized

14. Neurodevelopmental Skills Needed for Learning Gemara

15. The 4 Step ND Analysis Process

16. Accommodations and Interventions Over the past two sessions, we discussed two ways that we can manage our students’ learning: Interventions  Accommodations Interventions are aimed at strengthening a weakness Accommodations function to bypass a weakness Sometimes, an accommodation can be used as an intervention through scaffolding

17. Scaffolding A Scaffold is built to support a building, and is slowly pulled away until it can stand on its own. We can build accommodations to support a student’s learning, and slowly reduce the level of accommodation until the student can stand on his own

18. Some General Gemara Accommodations • Text with punctuation and vowelization inserted. Can be scaffolded: • Shtainzaltz (without the “Tzurat Hadaf”) • Tuvia’s (with “Tzurat Hadaf”) • There are also several Computer programs that work to provide this as well (Gemara Tutor, Gemara B’rurah) • Color – coded Gemara • How complex the coloring gets depends on student level (see simple example, next slide) • Can have different colors for Question, Answer, Proof, etc. Which neurodevelopmental weaknesses do these accommodations address?

19. Gemara Option 2

20. General Gemara Accommodations (cont.) • When students get “lost in the page” (Spatial Ordering), or need more scaffolding than just punctuation to see how the Gemara flows, we can make a Graphic Display, using just the words of the Gemara itself. This can be modified to adapt to a student’s (or a whole class’ needs), by adding selected translations, color, or commentaries. Look at the next slide as we re-ask the same questions we asked before – see if this helps:

21. Gemara Option 3

22. General Gemara Accommodations (cont.) • Graphic Organizers are excellent ways to: • display the information for those who have difficulty with just words • Show how the pieces of a sugya fit together • Keep interest • Allow for creativity and individuality, when the students are asked to make their own Here are some examples of effective graphic organizers for Gemara. Can you answer those two questions now?

23. Gemara Flow Chart

24. Differentiating your Hypothesis ATTENTION Could be impacted by: • Difficulty understanding the words • Not remembering some information • Not understanding the concepts • Not knowing where the place is • A feeling of inadequacy about his skills • Insert a dozen other possibilities here

25. Before you Assume it’s an “Attention” Problem … • Ask yourself: • Is this behavior happening in almost all subjects? • Does he have a history of attention problems in past years? • Does he attend better when … • he knows the material? (HOC) • things are translated? (LAN) • he is shown the place? (SpO) • when he is involved in the discussion? (SOC) • He believes he will succeed? (MOT) • new material is presented? (HOC) • He has study aids to help him remember key terms (MEM)

26. Attention Management Strategies • Mental Energy Control issues: • Seating to suit the need of the activity • Allow for physical movement during the lesson (within reason) • Check for lagging attention in middle of lesson and respond • Use scaffolded notes, so student knows what to listen for • Give advance warning that topics or activities will shift to allow for better transitions

27. Attention Management Strategies • Processing Control Issues: • Color coding, not too complex • Verbal Highlighting • Liberal use of the board to emphasize key points • Monitor for “mind trips”, and work on a system to achieve self-awareness and control • Identify personal motivators (prizes, opportunities, recognition, etc.) and use them to increase attention • Guided Chavruta

28. Attention Management Strategies • Production Control issues: • Use graphic organizers to demonstrate where the lesson is going • Explicit, short-term goals delineated at the beginning of the lesson • de-emphasis on how fast a task is completed, and reemphasis on quality • DO NOT use recess as a bargaining tool, or a negative consequence. These students NEED to run around, and you need them to do it, too.

29. Take Aways • Student learning is complex • We must be aware of what learning skills are in demand in the tasks we ask students to do • We can help students more when we know more specifically what is not working, and why • We can apply the latest understanding of how kids learn, to improve their success in Limudei Kodesh • We have the power to help our students succeed, and this opportunity is a sacred trust and true Avodat Hakodesh

30. Please contact me with questions, and I will try to answer as best as time will allow. My e-mail is: torahpsych@sbcglobal.net I look forward to your comments and questions.

31. For Further Information - Resources These texts helped me in preparing this session: • Levine, Dr. Mel; A Mind at a Time 2002, Simon and Schuster, New York • Zobin, Rabbi Zvi; Breakthrough to Learning Gemora 1996, JHRL, Jerusalem There are many resources to help teach Gemara, available online and in bookstores. The key is to know when and why to use each one.

32. Contacting Hidden Sparks www.hiddensparks.org Paula@hiddensparks.org (212) 767-7707/ (646) 688-5252