What about student-teacher relationships? It’s one of the central concerns that we hear from educators who are considering implementing online learning in their schools. The question is sometimes phrased differently: How do you engage and inspire students when you connect to them virtually? How are you a positive role model if you’re miles and miles away?
This question is front and center at Lookstein Virtual Jewish Academy both when we design and teach online courses. In fact, Akiva Berger will be focusing in on this topic at the upcoming NRJE conference, in his session “Evaluating Student-Teacher Interactions in Online Classroom Environments”. Akiva’s research uses Pianta’s “Classroom Assessment Scoring System” (CLASS) to evaluate the quality of interactions between teachers and students in their learning environments, both in the virtual classrooms of Lookstein Virtual Jewish Academy and in conventional classroom settings.
The 29th annual conference of Network for Research in Jewish Education is taking place Tuesday, June 9-Thursday, June 11, 2015 at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. See you there!