MTA freshmen, sophomores and juniors were empowered to take ownership of their educational growth during the yeshiva’s annual student-led conferences. SLC’s provide talmidim with the opportunity to meet one on one with their rebbeim and teachers and collaboratively discuss successes and areas of growth, as well as goals set by each talmid, with specific focus on how to achieve them. With help from the guidance department, talmidim have been preparing for SLC’s during their advisory sessions over the past few months to ensure that they maximize this unique experience. “We are always looking for opportunities to further enhance ownership of learning at MTA,” shared Rabbi Dov Emerson, interim principal for General Studies. “The goal of student-led conferences is to really give our talmidim an opportunity to practice taking ownership of their growth and learning. This is not a characteristic that magically appears in most people, but rather it is a skill to be learned and practiced. It was very important for us that talmidim had the opportunity to not only select the particular teachers that they wanted to meet with, but to think in advance about how they wanted to conduct the conversation and what types of goals they had in mind for the remainder of the semester. It was great to see that in our follow-up survey to talmidim, the overwhelming majority reported leaving their meetings with concrete next steps and goals to accomplish.” Talmidim made the most of this initiative and truly took ownership of both the meetings and their overall learning. “It was wonderful to watch the collaborative efforts as our talmidim led these meetings and discussed their progress with teachers who truly care about them and their growth,” Rabbi Emerson said. “This is our second year coordinating SLC’s, and it was gratifying to see the process becoming a more integrated part of our yeshiva culture, as many talmidim shared feedback that they would like to have these meetings on a more frequent basis.” In between meetings, talmidim also had the opportunity to participate in a variety of activities, including Yachad sensitivity training sessions, decorating the MTA campus for Purim, open learning seder in the beis medrash, chats with the yeshiva’s guidance department and sports tournaments.