When Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle adopted Hebrew in Harmony last year, educators wanted to ensure that the students had access to the rich content of the app in class. With more students than ipads, the school turned to small groups as a strategy.

Stacey Delcau, director of education at the school, invested in headphones and splitters so two students could be on an iPad at the same time.

Teachers in grades four and five devised small-group stations for students to rotate through during their lessons. While a teacher worked on reading with a small group, students at other stations worked on assignments in the Hebrew in Harmony journals, or related art projects, while other students practiced their Hebrew reading or watched the videos explaining the meaning of a prayer on the iPad.

“We’ve had success with stations and small groups using this curriculum,” says Delcau. “It gives teachers one more tool at their disposal to mix up the class routine. Centers require lots of work, a lot more pre-organization.”

Delcau has found that “stations fail when teachers verbally give instructions and expect students to remember what to do. The strategy works much better when it’s student-centered.” Her teachers do this by preparing folders that either stay at the stations with written instructions and expectations or are given to each child individually.

In fact, using small groups and stations with Hebrew in Harmony worked so well, Delcau is planning to train all the teachers in her k-8 school on how to use them in their classes. “We’ll walk through the curriculum guides and know that when they’re here in person and can exchange ideas with other teachers, they’re more apt to incorporate that into their classroom,” she says.

Watch students in another fifth-grade class use the Hebrew in Harmony app in pairs.

 

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