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

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 fourth part of a four part lesson. Click on the hypertext for part one, part two and part three of this lesson.


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

1. Place all the ones from each home team into a new group called expert team number one. Please all the twos from each home team into one group called expert team number two. Place all the threes and fours into their separate expert teams.

2. Each expert team then reads and discusses the information sheets that they had received, and decides how to teach that information to the members of their home team. This would include a method to check for understanding such as an oral quiz.

3. At a signal given by the teacher, members of each expert team return to their home team to teach what they had learned. Thus, home team member number one is expected to do the following: (1) define the term co-teacher; (2) explain what a co-teacher does and (3) check to make certain that each member of his team can accomplish the above two learning outcomes. Accordingly, home team member number two does the same thing with regard to the role of the madrich teacher. Home team member number three explains the role of the mentor teacher, and home team member number four teaches her teammates about the role of the expert teacher.

Note: During the teaching phase of Expert Jigsaw students are expected to take notes on the information presented by each team member.

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

Each student completes this chart that appears at the top of this post.


Closure: (Activity that summarizes and ends the lesson)

1. The teacher distributes or displays the above chart and says, “ let’s do the question in the hat activity to summarize and end today’s lesson.”

2. Each student in class is given a unique number or card (e.g. the number one in the class roster or role book, or a specific card from a deck of cards can be used) and these numbers or cards are placed in a hat.

3. The teacher then invites a student to select a number or card from the hat.

4. The teacher then poses a question to the class (e.g. What is a co-teacher? What does a co-teacher do? ) and the student whose name is associated with the number or card selected from the hat must answer the question.

5. If that student answers the question correctly, she selects the number or card of the next student to answer the teacher’s question. If her answer is incorrect, the teacher or a student picks the next card or number from the hat.

On the next post we will begin sharing lesson plans on enduring Jewish knowledge.