5b+Collaborative+Learning+in+Jewish+Education

Collaborative Learning is not a new concept in Jewish Education. For thousands of years, Jewish study was done in chevrutah, in partnership, which was believed to enrich the both the process and the end result, the experience and the learning. This, however, meant two people (men, traditionally) would sit together, face to face, and struggle with text until they had literally dissected every aspect of it. Collaboration, in this context, was in line with the first part of the National Institute for Science Education's comments about collaborative learning, as posted by Ms. Deborah Nagler on our Forum page: "the learners are challenged both socially and emotionally as they listen to different perspectives, and are required to articulate and defend their ideas".

 The question then is, what kind of Collaborative Learning can we introduce to the 21st century learner, using Web 2.0? We have looked at several tools, all of which can enhance collaborative learning. One of the most basic, googledocs, would allow students working on a class project to edit a document at the same time, although I will say from personal experience, that we tried to use this as a way for the yearbook committee in our school to work on one document, and googledocs did not accept it since the file was too large. So its use is limited to small files.

 Facebook, and other platforms can be used for students to discuss a specific text or subject, and to a certain extent, replicate the idea of chevrutah, by going "back and forth" with personal interpretations and reactions to other students' interpretations. If we are working with older teenagers or adults who have good web technology skills, we may suggest they create a website, or a blog, or even a virtual world, such as Second Life, where they can come to work together and study together.

I am, though, weary of substituting personal interactions by online collaboration. As Sprenger[1] (2010) well notes, online social network can lead to lack of personal communication skills. I would opt for creating groups in the classroom, which would be able to do part of their work online, from home.

[1] Sprenger, M. //Brain-Based Teaching in the Digital Age.// ASCD. Alexandria, VA. 2010 