Lesson Plan on the Middot As Enduring Jewish Knowledge: 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 Middot As Enduring Jewish Knowledge”.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 on the middot as enduring Jewish knowledge.

Title of Lesson: The Middot As Enduring Jewish Knowledge

Enduring Jewish Knowledge Rationale for the Lesson: Enduring Jewish knowledge such as the Torah and the Talmud contain a body of wisdom that guides a person regarding how to lead a righteous and meaningful life. The middot (i.e. Jewish virtues) are a source of enduring Jewish knowledge.

Essential Question/s: What is enduring Jewish knowledge? How do I find enduring Jewish knowledge? What makes Jewish knowledge enduring?

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 these three essential questions. (1) What is enduring Jewish knowledge? (2) How do I find enduring Jewish knowledge? (3) What makes Jewish knowledge enduring?

Objective/Learning Outcome: (What the student is supposed to learn from this lesson) In his or her own words, the student will be able to define, explain, and give an example of enduring Jewish knowledge.

Name of the Active Learning Procedure: Paired Consensus using the APCA process

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

Suggested Motivational Statement:

The teacher says: “Today we are going to further explore what Judaic information we should be teaching our students or what is enduring Jewish knowledge. “

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

Distribute the list of selected middot to your students.

On the next post we will share a list of selected middot.