Lesson Plan on the Roles and Responsibilities of the Co-teacher, Madrich Teachers and Expert Teacher: Part Three

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. This is one of many lessons we will be sharing on teaching Judaic content, lesson planning, models of teaching, differentiated and individualized instruction and learning activities designed to transform the classroom into a Jewish community of cooperative learners. The title of this lesson is “The Roles and Responsibilities of the Co-Teacher, Madrich Teacher and the Expert Teacher”. Since there are 13 elements in each lesson plan we will divide this lesson plan into four parts. This is the third part of a four part lesson. Click on the hypertext for part one and part two of this lesson.


Instructions for Quad Member Number Three

1. You will be required to teach your home teammates the definition and the responsibilities of the mentor teacher.

2. Below is the information that you will be teaching your home teammates. It contains questions and answers. Your job is not to read the questions and answers to your home teammates. Your job is to take notes, put this information into your own language, and teach it to the members of your home team.

3. What is a mentor teacher? A mentor teacher is a seasoned teacher with at least five years of excellent teaching performance evaluations. He or she is responsible for training the student teacher and the co-teacher to perform the teaching responsibilities of a Judaics classroom teacher.

4. What does a mentor teacher train the student and co-teacher to do?

• Plan lessons
• Determine content and curriculum (i.e. what should be taught)
• Create a positive classroom environment
• Develop multiple ways of delivering instruction
• Use multiple ways of measuring what students have learned
• Manage student behavior
• Take attendance and keep accurate records
• Collaborate with other members of the instructional staff including teaching assistants (madrichim), co-teachers, teachers, and administrators
• Communicate with and engaging parents, guardians, and members of the Jewish community to participate in classroom and school activities

5. Are there other areas of expertise that the mentor teacher should possess?

The mentor teacher should have additional areas of expertise in the supervision of student and co-teachers?

6. What are these additional areas of expertise that a mentor teacher should possess?

Mentor teachers should have expertise in these three supervisory areas:

1. Conferencing skills: knowledge on how to give feedback to and receive feedback from student and co-teachers
2. Observational skills: knowledge of what to look for in the classroom (i.e. Are students engaged in learning? How is the teacher managing student behavior? Did the teacher’s lesson plan meet its objective?)
3. Reflection skills: knowledge of methods to help student and co-teachers to effectively plan, implement, and evaluate a lesson


Instructions for Quad Member Number Four

1. You will be required to teach your home team mates the definition and the responsibilities of the expert teacher.

2. Below is the information that you will be teaching your home teammates. It contains questions and answers. Your job is not to read the questions and answers to your home teammates. Your job is to take notes, put this information into your own language, and teach it to the members of your home team.

3. What is an expert teacher? An expert teacher is the professional at a supplemental or day school who trains the madrich teacher and mentor teacher to discharge their responsibilities.

4. What else does an expert teacher do? The expert teacher also coordinates the committee of madrich and mentor teachers in the school. This committee matches madrich and mentor teachers with their mentees, and offers seminars in classroom management, instruction, assessment (i.e. measuring student learning), etc. The expert teacher should have extensive experience as a teacher, administrator, and/or staff developer with expertise in Judaics, and the theory, research, and best practices in instruction, curriculum development, supervision, and staff development for Jewish educators.

On the next post we will share the fourth part of a four part lesson on the roles and responsibilities of the co-teacher, madrich and expert teacher.

Lesson Plan on What Does G-d Ask of You: Part Two

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. This is one of many lessons we will be sharing on teaching Judaic content, lesson planning, models of teaching, differentiated and individualized instruction and learning activities designed to transform the classroom into a Jewish community of cooperative learners. The title of this lesson is “What Does G-d Ask of You?”. Since there are 13 elements in each lesson plan we will divide this lesson plan into two parts. Here is the first part of this lesson on the question: “What does G-d Ask of You?” The second part of this lesson follows.

Developmental Activity: (Set of procedures or steps to reach the objective/learning outcome)

1. Invite your students to think about and record their answers to these two questions: (1) What does G-d ask of you? (2) What does this statement mean? “That you have awe of the L-rd your G-d, and walk in all of G-d's ways and love G-d, and serve the L-rd your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul."

2. Direct your students to discuss their answers to the above two questions with a random learning partner for a designated period of time. Here is one way to create random learning pairs.

Count the number of students in class and divide that number in half. Then gather index cards equal to the number of students in class. Thus, if there are 20 students in class, prepare 20 index cards. Then write one number on each card from 1 to 10 twice. Thus you will have two cards with the number 1 on it, two cards with the number 2, etc. If you have an odd number of students, add a third index card with the number 1 written on it. Place all the index cards in a hat or box, and invite each student to close his/her eyes and select one card. The two (or three) students with the same number are new learning pairs/partners. In lieu of using numbered cards, you can prepare cards with matching colors, animals, songs, television shows, athletes, entertainers, etc.

Guided Practice: (Students apply new skill/s or strengthen previously learned skills during classroom instruction.)

1. Ask your students to return their cards to the hat or box, and invite them to select new cards. This process of using matching cards to create new learning partners and to discuss the essential questions of this lesson can continue several times.

2. Conduct a classroom discussion on what G-d expects of us.

Independent Activities: (Students practice new skill/s or strengthen previously learned skills outside of the class.)

1. Students can ask their parents, grandparents, or another person to answer these two questions: (1) What does V'atah, Yisrael, mah Adonai sho'eil mei'imach (And now, Israel, what does G-d ask of you) mean? (2) What does G-d expect of us?

2. Students then record the responses of the person they interviewed in their notebooks.

3. Students should be prepared to share what they had learned during the interview with their classmates.

Closure: (Activity that summarizes and ends the lesson)

The teachers summarizes the students answers and indicates that which HaShem expects of us signifies what is enduring Jewish knowledge. Then indicates that we will continue our investigation of enduring Jewish knowledge in the next lesson.

On the next post we will begin sharing a lesson entitled, “ What is Enduring Jewish Knowledge?"

Lesson Plan on the Roles and Responsibilities of the Co-teacher, Madrich Teachers and Expert Teacher: Part Two

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. This is one of many lessons we will be sharing on teaching Judaic content, lesson planning, models of teaching, differentiated and individualized instruction and learning activities designed to transform the classroom into a Jewish community of cooperative learners. The title of this lesson is “The Roles and Responsibilities of the Co-Teacher, Madrich Teacher and the Expert Teacher”. Since there are 13 elements in each lesson plan we will divide this lesson plan into four parts. Here is the first part of this lesson. This is the second part of a four part lesson.

Introductory Activity: (Initial exercise to focus on the objective/learning outcome)

1. Place students into quads, cooperative groups of four. These quads are termed the home teams.

2. Assign each student in each home team a number from one to four. Accordingly, point to the students in each home team and assign each member a different number and say; “You are one, you are number two, you are number three and you are number four.” Repeat this process for all the home teams in your class; then do a check for understanding and say. ”I want all the ones in each home team to raise their hands. Now all the two’s, please raise your hands, etc.” When you are certain that each student knows her number, proceed to step three.

3. Distribute this information on cards as described below (and on the next post) to the number ones, twos, threes and fours in each home team.

Note: If your class cannot divide into teams of four members, create one team of three members, a triad. Assign one member of that triad to also read and teach the information that is assigned to quad member number four.

Instructions for Quad Member Number One

1. You will be required to teach your home teammates the definition and the responsibilities of the co-teacher.

2. Below is the information that you will be teaching your home team mates. It contains questions and answers. Your job is not to read those questions and answers to your home teammates. Your job is to take notes, put this information into your own language, and teach it to the members of your home team.

· What is a co-teacher? The co-teacher is a pre-service teaching candidate (i.e. a 12^th grader, undergraduate Hillel participant or Jewish Studies major) who studies the art and science of teaching.

· What does the co-teacher do? The co-teacher plans and teaches lessons with the mentor teacher, and reflects upon those lessons prior, during, and after a lesson is taught. Accordingly, the co-teacher and the mentor teacher may be engaged in team teaching where they alternate instructing the whole class, or they may divide the class into small learning groups which each one directs. Ultimately, the goal of co-teaching is for the co-teacher to assume many of the responsibilities of the classroom teacher.

· How do the mentor teacher and the co-teacher reflect during a lesson? Here is how that takes place. At any point during a lesson, the teacher or the co-teacher can visually signal the other for a time-out. Students then are given some engaging work to do related to the lesson while the teacher and the co-teacher briefly discuss an issue of concern. What might be an issue of concern? The co-teacher might be sharing erroneous information, or the mentor teacher may not be teaching what they had discussed prior to the lesson. Thus the mentor teacher or the co-teacher may call for a time-out.

· Here is one more point to share with your class. Students should be informed that periodically these time-outs will occur to insure that the academic needs of students, and the objectives of the teacher and co-teacher are all met.

Instructions for Quad Member Number Two

1. You will be required to teach your home teammates the definition and the responsibilities of the madrich teacher.

2. Below is the information that you will be teaching your home teammates. It contains questions and answers. Your job is not to read the questions and answers to your home teammates. Your job is to take notes, put this information into your own language, and teach it to the members of your home team.

3. What is a madrich teacher? A madrich teacher is responsible for training the madrich or madricha to perform certain administrative, interactive, and creative responsibilities, and thus to assist him or her in the classroom. The madrich teacher should have at least three years of excellent teaching performance evaluations.

What does the madrich teacher train the madrich or madricha to do?

Administrative Responsibilities (Howard, 2006)

· Setting up the classroom

· Taking attendance

· Collecting tzedakah

· Distributing supplies, books, and other materials

· Preparing snacks

· Correcting students' work

· Managing progress charts

· Preparing materials for upcoming activities

· Reorganizing the classroom at the end of the day

· Temporarily taking charge of the class if the teacher is indisposed

· Teaching a five minute mini-lesson to a small group or the entire class

· Participating in and leading portions of a prayer service

Interactive Responsibilities (Howard, 2006)

· Greeting students as they enter the classroom

· Helping students with art projects

· Assisting students with class work

· Leading students in small-group activities

· Leading transitions between activities

· Reading stories to the class

· Tutoring students who need extra help

· Mentoring students who have difficulty focusing during class

Creative Responsibilities (Howard, 2006)

· Creating bulletin boards

· Making samples for upcoming art projects

· Developing costumes, scenery, or puppets for class performances

· Reading stories to the class

· Editing student-centered newspapers

· Providing musical accompaniment to prayer service

On the next post we will share the third part of a four part lesson on the roles and responsibilities of the co-teacher, madrich and expert teacher.

· Crea

Lesson Plan on the Middot As Enduring Jewish Knowledge: Part Two

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. This is one of many lessons we will be sharing on teaching Judaic content, lesson planning, models of teaching, differentiated and individualized instruction and learning activities designed to transform the classroom into a Jewish community of cooperative learners. The title of this lesson is “The Middot As Enduring Jewish Knowledge”. Since there are 13 elements in each lesson plan we will divide this lesson plan into four parts. This is part one of the lesson. The second part of this lesson on the middot as enduring Jewish knowledge follows:

Introductory Activity: (Initial exercise to focus on the objective/learning outcome)

The teacher distributes the list of selected middot to his or her students. See the list of middot at the top of this post.

On the next post we will share part three of this lesson on the middot as enduring Jewish knowledge.

Lesson Plan on the Roles and Responsibilities of the Co-teacher, Madrich Teachers and Expert Teacher: Part One

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. This is one of many lessons we will be sharing on teaching Judaic content, lesson planning, models of teaching, differentiated and individualized instruction and learning activities designed to transform the classroom into a Jewish community of cooperative learners. The title of this lesson is “The Roles and Responsibilities of the Co-Teacher, Madrich Teacher and the Expert Teacher”. Since there are 13 elements in each lesson plan ) we will divide this lesson plan into four parts. This is the first part of a four part lesson.

Title of Lesson: The Roles and Responsibilities of the Co-teacher, Madrich Teacher, Mentor Teacher, and Expert Teacher

Enduring Jewish Knowledge Rationale for the Lesson: A teacher is one who engages students in the study of Torah. From our perspective, a co-teacher is a pre-service teaching candidate (i.e. a 12^th grader, undergraduate Hillel participant, or Jewish Studies major) who learns the art and science of teaching through co-planning, co-instructing, and co-reflecting with the mentor teacher. Accordingly, the co-teacher and the mentor teacher may be engaged in team teaching where they alternate instructing the whole class, or they may divide the class into small learning groups which each one directs. Ultimately, the goal of co-teaching is for the co-teacher to assume many of the responsibilities of the classroom teacher. For additional justification for this lesson refer to the enduring Jewish knowledge rationale for lesson number one at this url:http://richarddsolomonsblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/lesson-plan-on-what-is-teacher-what-is_16.html

A madrich teacher is responsible for training the madrich or madricha to perform the administrative, interactive, and creative responsibilities of the teaching assistant. He or she should have at least three years of excellent teaching performance evaluations.

The mentor teacher trains the student teacher and the co-teacher to become a classroom teacher in a supplemental or day school. He or she should have at least five years of excellent teaching performance evaluations.

The expert teacher is a professional in a supplemental or day school who trains teachers to become madrich and mentor teachers. He or she should have extensive experience (i.e. more than five years) as a seasoned and highly competent teacher, administrator, and/or staff developer with expertise in Judaics, and the theory, research, and best practices in instruction, curriculum development, supervision, and staff development

Essential Question/s: What is a co-teacher, a madrich teacher, a mentor teacher, and an expert teacher? What are their different responsibilities?

Assessment/s: (Initial, ongoing, and final activities designed to measure what the student has learned)

Students individually and in cooperative groups discuss the answer to these essential questions: What is a co-teacher, a madrich teacher, a mentor teacher, and an expert teacher? What are their different responsibilities?

Objective/Learning Outcome: (What the student is supposed to learn from this lesson) The student will be able to define in his or her own words the answers to these questions: What is a co-teacher, a madrich teacher, a mentor teacher, and an expert teacher? What are their different responsibilities?

Name of the Active Learning Procedure: Expert Jigsaw

Anticipatory Set: (Motivation activity that prepares students for the learning outcome)

Suggested Motivational Statement:

“For today’s lesson we are going to do something even more challenging than the Simple Jigsaw that we had introduced in the previous lesson. Today we are going to apply a more complex cooperative procedure called Expert Jigsaw to define and differentiate the roles and responsibilities of the co-teacher, the madrich teacher, the mentor teacher, and the expert teacher. Are you ready for this challenge?”

On the next post we will share the second part of a four part lesson on the roles and responsibilities of the co-teacher, madrich and expert teacher.

Lesson Plan on What Does a Student Teacher Do: Part Two

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. This is one of many lessons we will be sharing on teaching Judaic content, lesson planning, models of teaching, differentiated and individualized instruction and learning activities designed to transform the classroom into a Jewish community of cooperative learners. The title of this lesson is What Does a Student Teacher Do. Since there are 13 elements in each lesson plan we will divide this lesson plan into two parts. The first part of this lesson plan is located here. The second part of this lesson on the roles and responsibilities of the student teacher follows.

Developmental Activity: (Set of procedures or steps to reach the objective)

1. Now that each student is a member of a quad, a team of four, each one receives a different clue face down on the table.

2. At a signal given by the teacher, each student turns the clue card face up and reads it to himself or herself, and then shares it with his or her teammates.

3. The four clues on the roles of a student teacher appear on the chart at the top of this post.

4. Students in quads discuss the information on their clue cards and try to determine what role the mystery person plays in the classroom.

5. When a team thinks it knows the answer to the mystery, the quad members raise their hands, and whisper the answer to the teacher. If they are correct, the teacher can give them another set of clue cards to investigate. See the four clues on the life of Golda Meir on the second chart at the top of this post.

Guided Practice: (Students apply new skill/s or strengthen previously learned skills during classroom instruction.)

Teacher prepares another set of clue cards related to the roles that other members of the instructional staff play in the classroom such as the teacher, the madrich or madricha, the madrich teacher, and the mentor teacher. Students are then challenged to work together and solve these mysteries as well.

Independent Activities: (Students practice new skill/s or strengthen previously learned skills outside of the class.)

1. Students can create their own clue cards for their quad mates or the other quads. These clues can relate to the seven areas of Judaic content discussed in the Toolbox.

1. Tanach (Bible)

2. Tefila (Prayer)

3. History

4. Hebrew

5. Hagim (Holidays)

6. Israel

7. Middot (Virtues)

Closure: (Activity that summarizes and ends the lesson)

1. In her own words, each student defines the role of the student teacher.

2. Teacher summarizes the role of the student teacher as a pre-service teaching candidate who is learning the art and science of actively engaging students in the study of Torah through (a) observation and discussion with the mentor teacher, (b) small-group instruction, and (c) teaching mini-lessons to the entire class of the mentor teacher.

3. The teacher explains that the students had engaged in a cooperative procedure called Simple Jigsaw, a cooperative learning procedure where each member of the team receives different information, but have the same question on its clue card. The objective of this cooperative exercise is for members to verbally share their clues in order to answer the question posed on each clue card.

On the next post we will begin the first part of a lesson entitled, “The Roles and Responsibilities of the Co-teacher, Madrich Teacher, Mentor Teacher, and Expert Teacher”.

Lesson Plan on What Does a Student Teacher Do: Part One

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. This is one of many lessons we will be sharing on teaching Judaic content, lesson planning, models of teaching, differentiated and individualized instruction and learning activities designed to transform the classroom into a Jewish community of cooperative learners. The title of this lesson is “What Does a Student Teacher Do??” Since there are 13 elements in each lesson plan we will divide this lesson plan into two parts. Here is the first part of this lesson on the roles and responsibilities of the student teacher.

Title of Lesson: What does a Student Teacher do?

Enduring Jewish Knowledge Rationale for the Lesson: A teacher is one who engages students in the study of Torah. From our perspective, a student teacher is a pre-service teaching candidate (i.e. a 12^th grader, Hillel participant, or undergraduate Jewish Studies major) who is learning the art and science of actively engaging students in the study of Torah through (a) observation and discussion with a mentor teacher, (b) small-group instruction, and (c) teaching mini-lessons to the entire class of the mentor teacher. Refer to lesson number one for a supplemental rationale for this lesson.

Essential Question/s: What does a student teacher do?

Assessment/s: (Initial, ongoing, and final activities designed to measure what the student has learned)

Students individually, in pairs, via classroom discussion and as a homework assignment discuss the answers to this essential question. What does a student teacher do?

Objective/Learning Outcome: (What the student is supposed to learn from this lesson) The student will be able to define in his or her own words the answer to this question: What does a student teacher do?

Name of the Active Learning Procedure: Simple Jigsaw

Note: You can use the Round Robin cooperative procedure or the Simple Jigsaw (Aronson et al, 1978) cooperative procedure that is described in the closure segment of this lesson.

Anticipatory Set: (Motivation activity that prepares students for the learning outcome)

Suggested Motivational Statement:

“For today’s lesson we are going to do something different. You will be a member of a team of four detectives. Each of you will have a different clue, and your objective is to put the clues together and determine the answer to the mystery question. Here’s the mystery question. Who is this person?”

Introductory Activity: (Initial exercise to focus on the objective/learning outcome)

1. Place students into cooperative groups of four, also termed a quad. There are many ways of forming cooperative groups including:

· Teacher selected groups: teacher determines the group membership.

· Student selected groups: students determine the group membership.

· Random formed groups: group membership is determined arbitrarily; for example, students line up according to their birth date with students born in January at the front of the line, and students born in December at the line’s end. The teacher then forms the groups according to student birth dates.

· Fake random formed groups: group membership appears to be determined randomly; for example, students line up according to their birthday from January 1^st through December 31^st. However, knowing that certain students do not work well together, the teacher selects students from different months for group formation.

Note: If you do not have four students to make up a cooperative group, one group may contain three or five members. In addition, you might want to pre-select students to serve as floaters. These are capable students who work well in cooperative groups and can take the place of a student who is absent.

On the next post we will begin the second part of a lesson entitled, What Does a Student Teacher Do?”

Lesson Plan on What Does a Madrich or Madricha Do: Part Two

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. This is one of many lessons we will be sharing on teaching Judaic content, lesson planning, models of teaching, differentiated and individualized instruction and learning activities designed to transform the classroom into a Jewish community of cooperative learners. The title of this lesson is “What Does a Madrich or Madricha Do?” Since there are 13 elements in each lesson plan we will divide this lesson plan into two parts. The first part of this lesson plan can be located at this url: http://richarddsolomonsblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/lesson-plan-on-what-does-madrich-or.html Here is the second part of this lesson on the roles and responsibilities of the madrich or madricha.

Guided Practice: (Students apply new skill/s or strengthen previously learned skills during classroom instruction.)

After pairs have exchanged one item, you give the command, “mill”, which means that students continue to greet the other members in your classroom community. This activity is called “Mill and Freeze”.

Developmental Activity Continued:

1. You determine how long to allow this community building (i.e. students milling while learning the names of the members of the class) and information sharing activity to last.

2. Invite each student in the class community to share one new item from her list.

You can use “Community Round Robin” where in clock-wise or counter clock-wise fashion each students is invited to speak or introduce “You’re the Teacher”. This is how “You’re The Teacher” is implemented. The teacher invites a student to share one item from her list. After that student has completed her response, she becomes the teacher, and then selects the next student to speak. This process continues. Students are encouraged to add new items to their list of madrichim responsibilities.

3. Give a brief lecture on the roles and responsibilities of the madrich or madricha.

A madrich or madricha is a member of the instructional staff who supports the classroom teacher. Here is a list of some activities a teaching assistant might be expected to do (Howard, 2006):

Administrative Responsibilities

• Setting up the classroom

• Taking attendance

• Collecting tzedakah

• Distributing supplies, books, and other materials

• Preparing snacks

• Correcting students' work

• Managing progress charts

• Preparing materials for upcoming activities

• Reorganizing the classroom at the end of the day

• Temporarily taking charge of the class if the teacher is indisposed

• Teaching a five minute mini-lesson to a small group or the entire class

• Participating in and leading portions of a prayer service

Interactive Responsibilities

• Greeting students as they enter the classroom

• Helping students with art projects

• Assisting students with class work

• Leading students in small-group activities

• Leading transitions between activities

• Reading stories to the class

• Tutoring students who need extra help

• Mentoring students who have difficulty focusing during class

Creative Responsibilities

• Creating bulletin boards

• Making samples for upcoming art projects

• Developing costumes, scenery, or puppets for class performances

• Editing student-centered newspapers

• Providing musical accompaniment to prayer service

Independent Activities: (Students practice new skill/s or strengthen previously learned skills outside of the class.)

1. Students interview a teacher or former teacher, madrich or madricha, and inquire about the madrichim responsibilities.

2. Students record the responses of the person they interviewed in their notebooks.

3. Students should come to class prepared to share what they had learned during the interview.

Closure: (Activity that summarizes and ends the lesson)

1. Students do a Mill and Freeze again and share (a) their own definition for a madrich or madricha, and (b) give a few examples of what madrichim are expected to do.

2. Teacher monitors this exchange of information, and shares his definition for the role of the madrichim.

On the next post we will begin the first part of a lesson entitled, What Does a Student Teacher Do?”