Ramaz educators from all divisions attended the annual Prizmah Conference for three days of high-quality learning and connection building with hundreds of other Jewish day schools. The conference was attended by over 1,200 Jewish educators from throughout North America. This included heads of schools, lay leaders, foundations donors and many other Jewish day school professionals. Sessions provided valuable networking opportunities and updated all of the attendees on the best and most up-to-date practices, related to Israel education, educational technology, antisemitism and more.
LS Director of General Studies Adrienne Laitman, LS Math Specialist Anna Greenberg, LS Literary Specialist Emily Zaken and fourth grade GS teacher and incoming LS Director of General Studies Danielle Smith presented during the Ignite workshop sessions, sharing a 5-minute explanation of the benefits they have observed from the Ramaz Lower School coaching model. They shared how Ramaz has established a culture of trust between teachers and coaches, which allows for teachers to feel empowered and comfortable asking questions about their practice without the fear of judgment. They explained the ways they believe the process at Ramaz—in which coaches collaborate with teachers to identify a focus question toward a learning goal—benefits both the teachers’ practice and the students’ learning experience. An example of a focus question is, “How can I ask questions that help facilitate my students’ deeper thinking and age-appropriate conversations, in a way that allows for differentiation in modes of participation and sparks interest in a range of learners?”
Ramaz administrators attended many different workshops, including: “Building a Multitiered System for Supporting Student Behavior,” “Resonant Management: Empowering Teams via Coaching Practices,” “Teacher Leadership: The Missing Link in Continuous School Improvement.”
Ms. Smith said of her experience, “A learning that I took away from these workshops was something I actually studied during my Teacher Leadership Masters Program at Brandeis, which is that a lead learner is not someone who has all the answers or claims expertise in any one area—rather, a lead learner is someone who guides a professional learning community in taking risks to explore new ways of gathering data, expanding their skills of observation and analysis; who empowers colleagues to take risks by opening their professional practice to observation and coaching; and who invites teachers to be active participants in their professional growth rather than passive recipients of others’ expertise.”
