After-school Learning for Remote Students

Blog 5 - Catlin Tucker's Blog

This week Dr. Tucker invited a guest, Rabbi Elchanan Poupko, to share his expertise in her blog. Rabbi Poupko is a middle school teacher in New York City. This blog touches on the idea of assigning remote students after-school learning assignments done in pairs or in groups, where students meet online to accomplish a learning goal. The goal is as much for socializing and simply human connection as for learning.

The rabbi has 3 suggestions for facilitating this idea; first, intentional pairing or grouping of the students by the teacher. This should be done in such a way that the students are excited to work with their partner, and it is also someone who can help to boost their social, emotional, and academic well-being. Second, communicate with parents to “get them on board”, so they can help their child find time to meet online with their partner or group. Third, assign pairings/groupings during a synchronous session so that students can plan in what way they will meet later on.

Rabbi Poupko offers several suggestions of learning assignments, but the one that most fascinated me was what he called “paired independent work”, based on the Havruta method, an ancient Jewish learning method. He uses this to provide an opportunity for students to each extra credit over a weekend by choosing a topic of interest related to his subject matter. Both students simply investigate, study, and learn together. There are no deadlines, no assessments, and not even a check for understanding. The rabbi checks with the students and parents to verify that the studying was done, and they receive credit. The outcomes, he says, are a passion for learning, a great sense of accomplishment, joy in social learning, and for the teacher, overwhelmingly positive feedback. I can’t imagine any teacher would not want to try this!

To check out Rabbi Poupko’s other ideas, you can find the blog here:  https://catlintucker.com/2021/02/after-school-pairings-and-groupings/