Since so much of our goal in working with Summit Learning this year was about shifting teacher and students mindsets, I asked teachers and school leaders to reflect on how their own perspectives have changed over the course of the year. Each teacher's brief reflection is followed by some commentary and background on how they were impacted by our Summit experience. Lynne Yulish, 6th and 7th grade Math Teacher I used to think... I had to be in the front of the room but now... I love walking around and hearing my students teach each other.

I recently spent an intense week in Israel with my Leading Edge CEO On-Boarding cohort.  Sitting in a café overlooking the walls of the Old City in a rare moment of quiet, I was struck by how, at least in Israel, some things never change (the vista of those ancient walls, for example) and yet some things seem to emerge overnight (when did the Orient Hotel appear in the lot that was vacant for so many years?).  The words of Rav Kook have never felt more apt: “The old shall be renewed and the new shall be sanctified; together, they will become torches that illuminate Zion.” I am back in Israel now and will be attending for the First Global Jewish Education Summit, hosted by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and the Ministry of Education.  This tension— timeless constants alongside dynamic, seemingly instant change—seems to resonate with much of what we know and care about, and love, in Israel and in Jewish day schools. For Prizmah, where we see ourselves intimately bound up in the rhythms and needs of Jewish day schools, this tension resonates as well.  As the school year comes to its end, we look back on highlights, we mark the inevitable turnover and transitions of staff, and we look ahead to the events and opportunities that have both a timeless and intensely current resonance.  There is a constant belief in the power of Jewish day schools to contribute to a thriving Jewish future, as well as in the dynamic and evolving ways these schools and their educators and leaders collaborate toward achieving that vision. As a new organization dedicated to a decades-old field, Prizmah has benefitted from the wisdom and talent of practitioners since day one, building on the strong foundations set by our legacy organizations and their teams.  Many of you have benefitted from the wisdom of Jane Taubenfeld Cohen, who has served most recently as Dean of Prizmah’s Leadership Academy after an illustrious career as Head of School and Executive Director of YU School Partnership.  As the school year ends, Jane is transitioning to a consulting role as Senior Advisor for Prizmah.   We can not thank Jane enough for all she has done to help establish Prizmah’s role in the day school field, for her mentorship of literally hundreds of professionals, and her optimism about what the future holds for day schools, for all kinds of learners.  Along with Jane’s transition, we have said l’hitraot to a number of our valued colleagues who are moving to jobs in schools and elsewhere.  Prizmah’s professional team continues to grow, and we look forward to serving the field with the very best of what we can offer. Looking ahead, Prizmah’s next chapter builds on our emerging strategic plan, with three primary areas of focus:  catalyzing resources, deepening talent, and accelerating innovation. In a network model that learns, grows, and builds community, Prizmah will bring together resources of every kind to benefit our schools and communities and to strengthen the whole field. Our Day School Investor Summit in Miami this coming November, designed to galvanize philanthropic interest in day schools, and the Prizmah field-wide conference in Atlanta next March are opportunities in the coming year for broadening the circle of those who care about and care for Jewish day schools.  When passionate educators and leaders come together, suddenly anything is possible for Jewish education. While we certainly wish you all a refreshing and even relaxing (at times) summer, we also encourage to hold on to the tensions that power schools and the broader day school field—eternal values/dynamic approaches; passionate leaders/collaborative teams; outstanding individual schools/interconnected schools within a community.  We look ahead, as our tag line reads, to a brilliant future for Jewish day schools, a brilliant Jewish future. Wishing everyone an enjoyable summer.

In my last post, I discussed the ways in which Summit Learning’s structures and outcomes align and suggest new (but old) ways to design Judaic learning in our schools. By using similar structures and systems in general and Judaic studies students can benefit from a more coherent experience where norms easily transfer from one class to another and teachers can more easily utilize each other’s data to tailor instruction to student needs.  In this post, I will share how these new structures and the Summit Learning platform can transform curriculum design and collaboration in the field of Judaic studies- better utilizing our most precious resource in Jewish education: teacher time. The Challenge of Curriculum Design in Judaic Studies For the past twelve years I have been teaching Judaic studies, I –like most Judaic teachers- have been given minimal guidance and criteria for what I should include in my curriculum and how I should teach or assess it. With almost no published curricula available and no standardized set of skills or assessments, we are left to make our own decisions and often find ourselves planning lessons on a day to day basis. When teachers are also expected to provide meaningful feedback, build relationships with students, design meaningful differentiated activities and consider students personal and religious growth, they are forced to either revert to what they already know, cut corners or burn out. A number of attempts have developed over the past few years to write and sell Judaic curricula to schools. Unfortunately, much of the funding for this work has been dedicated to designing online courses that are meant to replace the need for classroom teachers instead of provide resources to them. Other curricula have been designed by individuals or organizations not formally connected to classrooms or schools who often develop materials that are not adaptable to the needs or realities of unique schools and student bodies. Ideally, curriculum are developed and adapted with the teachers who will be implementing it. Either within or across schools, common guidelines are developed allowing the work to be divided and easily shared. The Opportunity of Summit Learning Structures and Platform The Summit Learning platform allows for a critical balance between standardization and customization, design and curation that could be transformative for Judaic teachers and schools. Within schools, the structures of Summit make sure that every project and focus area contains certain core elements:

• All projects require a description, essential questions, cognitive skills they are aligned with, a final product/performance assessment and checkpoints for feedback as students move towards the final product.
• All focus areas require a bank of diagnostic and final assessments, specific learning objectives and resources correlated with each objective.

This standardized template and structure ensures alignment and cohesion within individual courses and across courses within a school. Within the structure, schools can decide how much autonomy teachers have as designers. The common structure, though, makes collaboration amongst faculty more transparent and that, in turn, allows for enhanced accountability and cohesion. In addition, because Summit documents all of their processes and protocols, guidelines and templates for designing all aspects of a course are found in the “Educator Resource” part of the platform. Beyond the structure provided within schools, if multiple schools designed course materials using Summit structures, they could easily be shared and adapted. When developing courses in the Summit platform, teachers (or schools) have the flexibility of designing a course from scratch, using the template of a course or mixing and matching projects of focus areas from different courses. Besides Summit’s Base Curriculum that it developed, all schools on the platform grant access to their courses by default. This allows users to peruse courses, projects or focus area from other schools, copy it and use or customize it for their own school. For Judaic studies, therefore, this would enable effortless sharing and adaptation for full courses or individual elements within it. Two potential examples may make the potential value clearer: 1) I would like to design a project where my students will be presenting a shiur (Torah lecture) based on the portions of Tanach we recently studied. Instead of designing the project, determining how to scaffold it and align it with appropriate skills on my own, I search the Summit library for a different “shiur preparation project”. I find that a teacher in a different school has developed a well designed project for delivering a shiur related to a completely different section of Tanach. I would simply copy the project into my course, keep the final product, skills and checkpoints and swap out the content and activities with material better aligned with my course content. 2) For our “Beit Midrash Bekiut” (see last post) work in Mishna next semester, I would like to give students the opportunity to complete certain chapters of Masechet (tractate) Shabbat, Megillah and Sukkah. Instead of writing content questions worksheets for each section, I search on the platform for other schools that have designed Focus Area Units for each of these chapters. I cut and paste their units, tweak the language of some of the questions, add a couple of resources I think my students will benefit from and am ready for them to learn! Of course, there are challenges and potential concerns in the approaches I have outlined and the idealistic collaborative picture I have painted. I look forward to feedback and questions from the field and welcome other suggestions for how to advance the work of Judaic studies and utilize the powerful (free!) resources of Summit Learning.

by Noah Kalter
Yeshivat He'Atid

I thought for this post, it might be interesting to have my students 'talk." I can tell you that as their teacher, I know they LOVE Summit! They always were ready to work, and became masters at the platform. They loved the friendly competition and camaraderie that developed through the use of Summit - for example, seeing who can get the highest score on a content assessment test. Then, for those who aced it, happily helping the other classmates who might be having a bit of trouble passing their content assessments.

They also love the fact that in Summit, you NEVER fail. That word does not exist in the summit terminology and philosophy. There is no such thing as fail. If you don't pass an assessment, it just means that you have to go back, brush up on a couple of things that you didn't quite master or fully understand and try again. They would tell you that Summit is purely about learning - not about the grades.

My students loved the fact they they became the masters of their own education - they knew what they had to work on for that day and they knew how to get started without me, their teacher and mentor. They knew how and where to navigate the system on their own, and how to complete their assignments and projects - without me on top of them or micro-managing them. And they loved the independence - an independence that they would have never gained or experienced in a traditional school setting or philosophy.

They especially knew that that were lucky - lucky to be the first in their school to pioneer the summit learning platform. And, they often bragged about it and were so proud to share their experiences with others who wanted to understand what the summit learning platform is. They became summit's biggest advocates and even fans. And, I know that they are beyond excited to continue with summit in the upcoming 6th grade year. But, why take my word for it? Here they are, in their own words:

Tani: I go to a school that’s trying Summit Learning for this year. It is only for fifth grade.  Every year my school adds on one grade. If we like it, we will use this program next year. So I’m going to be honest with you guys. I like Summit Learning. So anyways, let me tell you a bit of how I use it.

We have about 7 subjects a day. That includes English, Social Studies, Math, and something called PLT.  So let me tell you about PLT (Personalized Learning Time). Everyone in the class goes at their own pace. The class chooses a subject; English 5, History 5, Integrated Science, or Math 5, and then learns it, takes a content assessment, and then they either master it with an 8/10, 9/10, or a 10/10 or they go back and learn it and take it again. There is something called a diagnostic. You can take a diagnostic to see what you know and what you don’t know. There might be some of the same questions in the content assessment.

Now I’m going to talk about how we use Summit Learning during English class. In English class we work on the units in English 5. We work together as a class. We are working on a unit now called “Break A Leg." We have to submit all the checkpoints and then we submit the final products.  We do the same thing for Social Studies. Social Studies is the same as History. In History 5 we are now working on a unit called “Examining multiple perspectives."

In math we go on the computer to do a unit called “Egyptian fractions”  and we already worked on the previous units. SO ANYWAYS, I THINK SUMMIT REALLY HELPS ME LEARN!

Avraham: I am a student at Westchester Torah Academy. I will be talking to you about my experience with summit. First, I will be talking about the pros of summit:

1. I can learn what I am most interested in
2. There is a lot of resources to help me with the content assessments
3. Before the content assessment, there is a diagnostic assessment to see what you need to learn.

I would also like talk about how summit has improved my learning. Summit gave me the chance to have more resources to help me learn the objective efficiently. The focus areas have helped me with learning, because it has resources to help me with the work. I hope you have learned about my learning journey.

Shane: I think summit is an awesome program. I learn independently, with  my teacher monitors. I like learning new things. and I think summit is really good because it can teach you something new every day. Well, it is awesome.  It is missing something - foreign languages. I think summit should also teach us Hebrew, Spanish and much more. It should also teach us our history .Like, if your school is Christian than your teacher should be able to choose that religion to teach on summit. Thank you for your time.

So, as you can see, my students love Summit. Not only are they excited to continue their learning journey through Summit, but would like to learn even more subjects in the platform. As Shane suggested, perhaps languages, religion, etc! And why not!

Using Summit Learning to Re-Think the Structure of Judaic Studies As I discussed in an earlier blog post, a large part of what drew our school and teacher to Summit Learning was the systematic, outcomes based approach it takes towards the structures for learning, teacher roles and student experience of school. It encouraged us to better design and align our 6^th grade general studies experience to meet the educational values we already shared. As a Modern Orthodox day school, though, students learn both Judaic and General studies in their dual curriculum program. If we want the school experience to be more aligned and systematic, then, where do Judaic studies fit in? To what extent can and should our design for Math, Science, History and English be applied to Tanach (Chumash, Navi) and Torah She’bal Peh (Mishna, Gemara)? In this post I will begin with a review of the different components of Summit’s structures and goals and suggest ways in which these components naturally transfer to Judaic studies. In the next post, I will consider potential reservations and discuss ways in which adopting Summit’s structure and platform may transform the ways in which teachers and schools develop and share curricula.

Summit Learning Outcomes and Judaic Studies Summit argues that the academic outcomes of school break into two components:

1) Content Knowledge- Summit recognizes that mastering discipline specific content knowledge is necessary for students to continue to learn and apply their knowledge. How can you use your ability to inquire, present or construct an argument if you don’t know anything?

2) Cognitive Skills- These are the skills student need to use and make sense of what they know. They are the skills that are harder for technology to replace and that are critical in college, career and enriching our lives. They include broad categories like textual analysis, inquiry and products and presentation and specific skills such as theme, word choice, selecting sources, constructing an argument and counterclaims. How do these outcomes match up with our goals for Judaic studies? While we will not delve into the full range of Torah sources here, it appears that there are fundamental similarities when we examine the goals of teaching and learning Torah:

1) Content Knowledge- Without Judaic/Torah literacy, students cannot continue to learn, they cannot live an observant lifestyle and they cannot raise families and building communities that embody these values. Literacy does not only involved content knowledge but also the ability to access core texts. In general studies, a critical way in which content knowledge is developed is through reading. Early grades help students “learn to read” so they can continue to “read to learn”. In Judaic studies (at least outside of Israel), though, the work of “learning to read” generally continues into higher grades because texts are in a language that is not part of students’ daily world.

2) Cognitive Skills- While one could debate the range of skills that are part of Judaic studies, it is clear that we are not only interested in students being knowledgeable or literate. Torah study asks learners to enter into dialogues with the texts and knowledge being imparted to them. We want students to question, analyze, hypothesize and make sense of what they learn. This is necessary, on one level, to understand and apply halachic concepts to new situations not explicitly addressed or fathomed by previous generations. On a second level, there is recognition that become part of the debate and dialogue develops more identification and connection with the texts, characters and values they portray.

Structures for Learning: The How Follows the Why In Summit’s design, a students’ week is divided into three different types of learning structures, referred as their “Pillars of Learning”:

1) Project Time: The overwhelming majority (they recommend 70%) of students time is spent working towards completing projects. In the final product of these projects, students use apply their “Cognitive Skills” such as Constructing an Argument, Inquiry or Presentation (see the full list and rubrics here) to their content knowledge in order to produce an meaningful, discipline specific authentic product. These products may involve more classic PBL proposals to real world audiences or may focus on the type of products students will need to create college or career (like a research paper, essay or seminar). When I discussed the process of curriculum design with the head of Summit’s Curriculum Team, he said they begins by asking: What will students need to do in college and the “real world” in this discipline? That product is then broken down into its different components through “Checkpoints” where students receive formative feedback. Each checkpoint is then aligned with the specific cognitive skill required to successfully complete it. During project time, teachers facilitate student work on their projects by providing differentiated models and activities that help students work towards the product at their personal skill level, all while applying their individual background knowledge.

2) Focus Areas / Personalized Learning Time: The remaining amount of students’ academic time is spent working on Focus Areas for each discipline (English, History and Science- Math is a separate story). A Focus Area is a content unit which contains a certain number of objectives, a list of resources students can use to learn these objectives, diagnostic and formative assessments. Resources may include print or digital text, video, audio, pictures, presentations or note take guides that are potentially helpful to the student in moving toward mastery of the content area. In English, Focus Areas may include topics like figurative language, theme, plot or research. In History, it may include a unit on Greece, Rome, Causes of the American Revolution or Industrialization in Europe. The novel approach of Summit is to argue that the primary role of the teacher in content instruction is carefully curating content and supporting students in learning how they learn best. If knowledge is the ultimate goal, students can choose different pathways to master that knowledge as long as they are held accountable in the same way. Similarly (though this doesn’t necessarily have to go together), students can proceed at different paces and master different amounts or depth of content. In content learning, group work and exposure to different types of thinking is less important. Therefore, students do not have to be held back or pushed forward based on what others in the class are ready for. Students requests assessments for each Focus Area when they feel ready and, after teacher approval, are given the opportunity to demonstrate mastery and move on or to find out what they must review further before attempting the assessment again.

Application to Judaic Studies Summit’s differing structures helps highlight the need to align structures for learning with goals. If we already establish the value of both content knowledge and cognitive skills in Judaic studies, what could these structure of learning look like in Judaic classes? I believe the Summit structures align with traditional Jewish structures of Bekiut and Iyun learning.

1) “Beit Midrash Bekiut” Focus Areas: Students study texts in a page after page (for Talmud) or chapter after chapter (for Tanach) approach. Focus areas could either be divided by page/chapter or a specific skills progression students move through to mastery (consider: Vav HaHipuch and Shoresh identification or literary analysis skills like word patterns or figurative language in Tanach). Resources are provided and, with guidance, students choose options that work best for them to master the material. The learning need not be technology based- resources simply provide support which, perhaps, student are discouraged from using as they become more proficient. When ready, student take content assessments and either move on or return to review. Such an approach would allow students to move through content or skills at their own pace and build literacy and in a more individualized, and therefore more efficient, way. It would also enable students of different backgrounds and abilities to feel a sense of community as they can learn different things in the same physical location (like a Beit Midrash). The Beit Midrash time would also provide the context for text driven study which, for many students, will be the way we hope they continue engage in Jewish learning after their formal learning concludes.

2) “Iyun” Project Time:  If we follow Summit’s design, here we need to raise the fascinating question of what application of Torah knowledge looks. What is an “authentic” application of Tanach or Gemara study in our lives and the lives of our students? The answer to this question, which like differs by community and school, defines the basis for the products projects are being designed around in Judaic studies. Students may be working to use their learning to write a d’var torah or prepare a shiur. They may be learning how to employ their knowledge in a debate with a chavruta, writing a halachic responsa, or writing an op-ed – looking at a contemporary issue through the lens of the Torah they know. Whichever particular product you choose, the model asks us to consider the skills students will need to apply their knowledge in creating these products and explicitly model, guide and provide feedback to students as they work towards them. In this blog post, we summarized the different elements of Summit Learning and examined the appropriateness and adaptability of those elements into Judaic studies. Obviously, much more work needs to be done in flushing out the specific content of the structures. The structures themselves, though, are the true innovation of the approach and push us to think carefully about the relationship between goals, learning structures and the teacher’s role in Judaic studies.

The Bader Hillel High school year concluded with a day of students submitting final products and taking content assessments while working with a precarious wifi connection. After a year in which we jumped headfirst into a new learning program, our last day was a fitting bookend to match our first day.

For BHH, a dual curriculum high school, the adoption of the Summit Learning Program (SLP) significantly changed the general studies program from an online experience to a face-to-face blended classroom model (see Treading a New Path). Two BHH instructors trained with SLP in July, and an additional instructor was hired in August. This team of three geared up to teach the core grade 9-10 courses in our pilot year with SLP.

In addition to SLP summer training-- four intensive days-- the team met in August to prepare for the new program. Initially our work focused on three key areas:

1. scheduling and routines for project times (PT) and personalized learning times (PLT)
2. learning how to navigate SLP
3. understanding grading (checkpoints, projects, focus areas) on SLP

Going into the first weeks of school, we were  prepared with our schedule; little changed from our original plans. Once we established procedures and expectations for PT as distinct from PLT with our students, we were set. Navigating SLP was like peeling an onion: As we opened unexplored layers, we sometimes cried, but always expanded the tools at our command. The platform continues to be updated in response to user feedback, so this process will be ongoing. Finally, we had questions about grading that went beyond the technical tools.

• Can and should every student achieve an A or B?
• To what extent do grades reflect effort?
• To what extent do they reflect competencies?
• How do scores for 36 Cognitive Skills contribute to students' grades?
• What can teachers do to help all students pass content assessments?

December PD at BHH with an SLP mentor

SLP provided multiple resources that helped us work with these questions including the SLP Help Desk, weekly online checkins with a mentor, the weekly Summit Learning Scoop, face-to-face  convening with SLP teachers, and an onsite professional development (PD) day for our staff. The day spent in December with an SLP mentor, school administrators, and teachers was pivotal to successfully implementing SLP courses at our school. Our PD zeroed in on accommodations and modifications of the SLP courses to meed the needs of students with IEPs and those whose elementary school experiences left gaps in their readiness for high school courses. In studying these cases, we strengthened our proficiency with SLP tools, and we gained confidence to edit the base curriculum to fit all students while maintaining high academic standards.

While each independent school is unique, it is hoped that what has been learned at BHH can inform other small, independent schools who may choose to partner with Summit Learning. Here are some pointers gathered during our pilot year:

• You can combine two grade levels in a singe course. SLP is set up for doing so if you know how to edit projects and focus areas. If you combine grade levels, be sure to ask your SLP mentor to help you adjust both the cognitive skill scoring for projects and the content area assessments. Each grade level has a distinct range of cognitive skill scores, so each level needs a section of that course in the platform (e.g. Physics A= grade 9 students,  Physics B= grade 10 students). We also understood  later in the year that grade level focus areas can be assigned, so students can master content in a sequence that is aligned with their grade level. Although we taught English 10 to grades 9 & 10, we could assign grade 9 English focus areas to the grade 9 students instead of expecting them to master grade 10 content.
• Be creative in scheduling Personalized Learning Time. Individual teachers responsible for several courses may be leading Project Times all day, while others have openings to lead PLT; a jigsaw puzzle approach works well. At our school, the Boys' School and Girls' School Principals oversee both religious and general studies, so it made sense for them to be trained for SLP, even though they were not teaching general studies courses. Each of our division principals led some PLT and served as mentors for some students.
• Teach your students about the Cognitive Skills. For high school students, an overview of the domains and how they impact college and career are a starting point. The more detailed rubric of all 36 skills with the 0-8 point scoring scale should be introduced in projects and discussed in 1:1 Mentoring. In each course, teachers must give students the rubric for those cognitive skills used in a project each time a new project is introduced. Posting the cognitive skills and target scores for the grade level gives students a constant reminder of the goals they are working toward.

Sample Cognitive Skills Rubric for English 10 World Literature Project

By the final day of 2018-19, 93% of students had passed their SLP courses (100% as of this writing), and teachers were discussing improvements we will make for 2018-19. Next year we will use SLP to teach general studies courses for grades 9-11, and we plan to expand to all four grades beginning with the 2019-2020 school year. We are adding courses and staff members as we go, and we are building an authentically student-centered environment through our partnership with Summit Learning.