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Tziri Lamm asks what we actually want students to know and do.
9 Plays1 hour ago
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tziri-lamm/
Hosted by Starr Sackstein & Crystal Frommert
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Contact us: Starr@masteryportfolio.com crystal@masteryportfolio.com
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Transcript
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast, where we empower and inspire ownership of learning, sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Star Saxton and Crystal Frommer.
00:00:15
Speaker
In each episode, we bring you an authentic conversation with educators, both in and out of the classroom, that will hopefully encourage you to try something new. This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner-centered spaces for their students, schools, and districts, or education at large. The Learner Centered Spaces podcast is a member of the Teach Better Podcast Network.
00:00:40
Speaker
Get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guest. We very excited today to have Siri Lam on the show today.
00:00:51
Speaker
She is the currently Director of General Studies at Bar-Kai Yeshiva High School in Brooklyn, New York. Previously, she taught high school English for 16 years and was an ed tech coordinator for a few years and ran the STEM department in the previous school.
00:01:07
Speaker
We asked Siri, what is her passion or purpose? Give us one sentence for that. And she said, bringing authentic student-centered learning to the Jewish day school space, specifically at the high school level.
00:01:21
Speaker
Her hobbies include reading and learning more about education. And she also likes to bake, mostly challah bread and sourdough bread and crafting. Siri also is a recipient of the Young Pioneers Award from the Jewish Education Project in 2023 for innovative work in the classroom.
00:01:40
Speaker
Very excited to have you on the show today. Welcome. I'm glad to be here. Siri, I'm so excited to have you share a little bit about your journey. Can you tell us what got you started on the path that you're on right now?
00:01:53
Speaker
I would say that it first started when I had questions about assessment. I'm going to say at least 10 years ago, the assessment systems I was using didn't seem to make sense to me.
00:02:06
Speaker
And so I started reading and and along the way, tried out so many different versions of alternative assessment and different approaches to measuring learning um until almost by accident, I fell into competency-based learning.
00:02:24
Speaker
um I had been reading assessment by design and it spoke about competency-based learning in almost like a one sentence. And I was like, hey, what is that?
00:02:35
Speaker
And I started two read about it. And I knew that I had found a thing that really lit me up. And i had not seen any evidence of Jewish day schools, especially at the high school level, really using competency-based education in any comprehensive kind of way.
00:02:56
Speaker
And so that's what I've been doing a lot of thinking around and wondering what that looks like, especially it's introduced in a slow and steady way.
00:03:07
Speaker
So to that end, Siri, I am also very, very interested. um Since my whole background has been in public ed I'm curious to know how building these learner-centered spaces using authentic and alternative assessments, what does that look like in a Jewish day school setting?
00:03:27
Speaker
So not every single Jewish day school is alike, but I'm going to speak broadly for yeshivas or modern Orthodox Jewish institutions, where for most of them, learning looks a little bit different than it does in public schools, primarily because the day is divided in half between Judaic studies that generally take place in Hebrew and a full what we call general studies or is just regular education curriculum at the same time.
00:03:52
Speaker
um And balancing the needs of kind of both sides of the day um can feel a little bit challenging, especially when a lot of the Judaic studies portion, which generally involves the study of very, very ancient texts, um can struggle to sometimes see how authentic and student-centered learning fits within that context.
00:04:16
Speaker
Can you tell us a little bit more about some of the changes that you've been able to implement, given the research that you've been doing, and also some of the things you've tried that might be helpful to other folks?
00:04:31
Speaker
and Sure. ah For me, the easiest road in was through focusing on character development. That is often a feature of the competency frameworks that I've seen.
00:04:41
Speaker
And the reason that that fits so well is Jewish education tends to often be very focused on development of people using values, a really values-based approach to how we work.
00:04:55
Speaker
bring students through their full educational career. And so where I was able to be successful was in saying, about we gather some evidence on how students have been demonstrating all of these, what I like to call strengths of heart, strengths of will, and strengths of mind. This language comes from Angela Duckworth, who used to have the Character Lab. It's now since been shuttered, but I i use their language because I really like the way that it's divided.
00:05:24
Speaker
um And that was an area that didn't quite push back against some of the more traditional systems that we have in our school, but certainly gave us a way in to think about a more expansive and holistic view of the students that we serve.
00:05:39
Speaker
So with your work with STEM previously, and you you mentioned a little bit about um your studies in your school lend sometimes to ancient texts towards a traditional style.
00:05:51
Speaker
How does STEM play a role and and and in studying ancient texts and the religious studies? So I can actually tell you about a delightful project that I was part of this past year that we're hopefully going to be participating in again.
00:06:05
Speaker
um I love fabrication and design. um And so we worked together with an organization called SAIGE, the Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education, um to run essentially a fabrication challenge that had students design a ritual object um that they could use in their daily lives. And they had to actually do a lot of background research on on what the ritual was that they were creating the object for and where its sources were and how it was interpreted and practiced um in the modern era.
00:06:40
Speaker
And then students got to create these objects that they then brought um to a lovely like gallery unveiling where they got feedback from local artists and other kinds of experts.
00:06:52
Speaker
So for example, i had students who made a braille version of a morning prayer that they say to make sure that even people who have visual impairments can access those texts.
00:07:06
Speaker
Or um I had another group of students that created um a box that could hold a lot of different Shabbat supplies. So if, for example, someone was going camping or needed to go to a hospital and wanted to still be able to bring along all the necessary ritual objects that go along with that, they could have this nice, like custom-made 3D printed case that it went in.
00:07:32
Speaker
That's incredibly creative. i love I love that. I don't think I would have thought of that myself, but it's it's it's bringing the historical heritage to modern day and to practicality. I love it.
00:07:44
Speaker
um My next question for you is what advice would you have? So you have a teacher who maybe is in a more traditional setting, whether it's religious or not, and they really do want to stretch their creative wings, but they're in this setting. What advice would you have for that educator?
00:08:02
Speaker
So I think I'd have two pieces of advice. And the first would be to start small. um I am an impatient person by nature. And so it's a piece of advice that I need to give myself every single day.
00:08:15
Speaker
um But I can tell you that when you start small and you just keep at it, um i'll i'll I'll bring in an ancient tale. There's an ancient tale of a rabbi during the time of the Second Temple ah period.
00:08:30
Speaker
ah His name was Rabbi Akiva. And they said that he didn't start learning any ah Jewish text until he was 40 years old. But then he sat and he let the knowledge come into him in this drip, drip, drip fashion, because he saw a stone that was worn away by water, just little one drop at a time on it. And what that reminds me is that when we have something good that we want to be able to implement.
00:08:55
Speaker
Sometimes it's a matter of doing it every day in tiny little ways, and we can eventually make a difference um in a system through small, repeated, consistent actions.
00:09:07
Speaker
So I would say that's my first piece of advice. um And the second one is to really think about the underlying goals that we have for our students.
00:09:18
Speaker
In any given class or learning experience, what do we want to students to actually be able to come out knowing, but even more importantly, being able to do, and then finding spaces within there to build those transferable skills um through by but slightly shifting things we may have been doing already um and reframing them for are you know using the language, perhaps, of competencies and transferable skills and showing people that it's but it's really not necessarily all that different from some of the things we've been doing already.
00:09:54
Speaker
Can you give us just one example of what that looks like? Sure. um So there is an ancient Jewish practice called Chavruta, and it's this idea that two people study a text together.
00:10:07
Speaker
um And what I've tried to do is to bring elements of Chavruta into our general studies classes. So I work with my teachers who are teaching history and English, um and we try to adapt some of the practices that the Judaic studies faculty are using in their Jewish text classes and kind of bring them in to our regular classes so that people can start to see that it's really the same kind of practice.
00:10:34
Speaker
And that when we use protocols, right, that I can then share back to the juic to the Judaic studies teachers, like here are some protocols that we found helpful for partner learning. um Then we can begin to create shared and common language that crosses both sides of the day.
00:10:50
Speaker
I love Havrutah, and I'm glad that you are doing that. I actually, even though I'm Jewish and went to Hebrew school my whole life, ah I learned about that practice on a podcast called Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.
00:11:01
Speaker
I loved that podcast. during During COVID, I listened to, I was like the most avid fan um for quite some time. But yes, they use they use actually quite a number of um of Jewish sacred learning practices. i know And I think it's so amazing too to apply some of some of these, and they don't just do Jewish practices, they do all all religions. Right.
00:11:25
Speaker
um But I love the different perspective of exploring a text that was really like is really so close to my heart. um Of course, it's it's a little more challenging now, given my feelings for J.K. Rowling and how she's handling a lot of things. But ah um the text itself, if it stands on its own, just this idea of thinking about literature, thinking through different lenses and perspectives is always something so amazing. So I'm glad that you're doing that with your folks in history, because it must unearth a lot of really different perspectives and really close understandings of things.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yes. So how we'd like to go now is, are there people in your network that you would love to shout out so that our listeners know who to listen to or who they should research?
00:12:21
Speaker
Sure. In the Jewish day school space, um there is a wonderful woman by the name of Tikva Wiener. um She has an organization called Kadima Coaching.
00:12:31
Speaker
um She's very active on LinkedIn. um And she is really focused on bringing student-centered learning practices to the Jewish day school space um and has quite a bit of experience with that and has been working with schools lately, really across the country um to shift the...
00:12:49
Speaker
conversation around what student-centered learning might look like in Jewish day school spaces. um So she's certainly somebody worth checking out. Star, I've loved our time working together. You continually inspire me and and give me a lot of things to think about. So I would be remiss to not mention um you.
00:13:09
Speaker
ah The other two, Angela Stockman, I will read any single thing that Angela Stockman writes and I will listen to anything she says. And she pointed me in the direction of Jess Vance, whose book on learning walls um I've been reading now slowly over the summer, because um that's something I really hope to implement as we work on shifting towards more authentic learning spaces.
00:13:35
Speaker
Can you say more about learning walls? I am not far enough in the book, but essentially it's a documentation process from everything that I know and understand and have seen. Jess is very active on on social media and has a lot of like, she'll post pictures and and little videos.
00:13:53
Speaker
It's essentially a way of documenting learning in a very student-centered way so that the students really help to co-create um this record of learning that is a dynamic space on the wall of the classroom so that it's right there for everybody to see and really democratizes the um the documentation and and visibility of the learning process.
00:14:22
Speaker
And she mentioned it in her first book. um I forget its exact title, Leading with a Lens of Inquiry, maybe. um And I was so intrigued and I was very excited when I heard that she was...
00:14:35
Speaker
um writing a whole book on it. So I've been slowly making my way through. Thank you. going to check it out myself. And Angela Stockman, I agree with you. And she was a guest on Learner's Nerd Spaces.
00:14:48
Speaker
And um i will link to that in the show notes if any listeners want to go back to that episode. um Speaking of show notes, where could listeners find out more about you? Where could they connect with you?
00:15:01
Speaker
um I am not great about social media. I am on LinkedIn. um That's probably the best place to connect with me. And maybe this will be my, ah I don't know, reminder that maybe I should be more active on social media.
00:15:18
Speaker
Well, we really appreciate your time. And this has been a great conversation. Thank you. Yes, it has been. Thank you for having me. Thanks, Siri. Thank you for learning with us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes.
00:15:36
Speaker
Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at masteryportfolio.com. Please sign up for our monthly newsletter for resources to support your learner-centered pedagogy.
00:15:47
Speaker
You can follow us on LinkedIn on our Mastery Portfolio page. We'd love for you to engage with us. If you'd like to be a guest on the show or know someone who would be an inspiring guest, please email us.
00:15:59
Speaker
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