Joseph Maghen, education director at Temple Emanu-El in San Diego, believes that students need opportunities to reflect on discussions and activities and write down their ideas. “There’s value in putting their thinking down on paper instead of just verbalizing thoughts,” he says.
Come this fall, all 140+ students in his school will begin using the CHAI student workbooks to complement the lessons in the comprehensive, spiraling curriculum core being adopted schoolwide. Maghen was drawn to CHAI by its grounding in the principles of Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design, which uses backward design to focus on the enduring understandings we want students to take with them as they establish a strong basis for later Jewish learning and living.
The CHAI curriculum is organized into three strands - Torah, avodah and g'milut chasdadim – that grow over seven levels, guided by age-appropriate enduring understandings for each level. Maghen piloted CHAI last year with a few teachers and met with them weekly to share ideas and discuss how the detailed lesson plans played out in their various classroom dynamics.
“We want to provide continuity and scaffolding, and CHAI provides a map, a path, both for teachers and students,” Maghen says.
The companion student workbooks for each level provide a place for student work and reflection as well as offer a portfolio for assessment. The workbooks offer a good value, Maghen says, adding that they are “helpful for students to have their own place to write. Plus, they can work in small groups to put ideas together.”
Many of Temple Emanu-El’s school staff do not come with much teaching experience, especially the college students, and Maghen is happy to have found a “defined curriculum” so his staff has “complete lesson plans, teaching strategies, and understanding about what they are teaching.”
To learn more about the CHAI curriculum, click here.
