Classroom Teaching

Mark Smilowitz closes the Classroom Teaching podcast series with this final episode that reflects on some of the morals and messages of the series that teachers can take to heart.

Mark Smilowitz interviews retired teacher and professor of education Stephanie Bravmann on the topic of transformative education, including transformative Jewish education. They discuss the challenges teachers face in moving beyond transmitting information to transforming the child, why transformation is important, and what kind of mindset a teacher needs in order to do it.

There is a lot of good advice out there about how to deal with a difficult student. In this podcast Mark Smilowitz suggests that one critical issue that is often overlooked is the teacher's need to adjust his or her attitude from adversarial to advocative. Mark offers his advice how to do so to help effectively manage the difficult student.

Beyond learning content knowledge and skills, many teachers would like to see their students develop a real and lasting appreciation for their subject. In this episode of Classroom Teaching, Mark Smilowitz offers an outline of how to teach toward appreciation.

This episode focuses on the topic of accountability in the classroom with an interview with Rabbi Bernie Fox, the head of school at the Northwest Yeshiva High School of Seattle. He shares an impressively well thought-out and systematic approach to nurturing an ongoing sense of accountability among the students, which includes connecting accountability to stated goals and objectives, creating a learning partnership with the students, offering feedback in a cooperative manner, and other related issues.

In this episode Mark Smilowitz considers the tendency for us as teachers to let others assess our success as teachers instead of doing so ourselves. He also discusses the habit we sometimes have of focusing on our failures instead of accepting our successes. Mark considers these issues in response to a recent story that happened to him.

It's a well known adage of education to start a lesson where the kids already are. But what does this mean, how does one do it, and how important is it? In this episode Mark Smilowitz explores different aspects of this fundamental principle. Includes examples for teaching about Pesach.

In this special Purim episode, Mark Smilowitz gets hints and tips from a teacher who has earned the title "worst teacher of the year." Come listen for a fascinating journey into a world of incompetence and negligence. Recommended listening, especially with an alcoholic beverage.

In this episode Mark Smilowitz explores the issue of teaching overarching concepts with R. Perlmutter, author of the book Gemara Wisdom. R. Perlmutter has extracted life lessons from the details of Jewish law discussed in the Talmud and in this episode he shares with Mark and listeners his secrets of how to discover and teach these powerful ideas that dwell in the depths of your subject area, whatever you may teach. Learn more about Haim and his work at http://haimperlmutter.com/.

How quickly do you get your students' papers graded and returned? Do you tend to have papers pile up? This episode includes a number of useful tips to help you sail through those piles of pages. It also discusses the educational and psychological benefits of returning papers in a timely way, and how doing so can increase student performance and teacher satisfaction.