After the
American Liaison to the Beijing Institute of Education, Doris Pokras, visited
RYNJ this fall, she contacted me about visiting RYNJ with 17 of Beijing’s best science teachers during a four week trip to see best schools in the US. I coordinated their visit to Bergen County schools. They visit RYNJ this
week and we hosting them for a one day science conference and
classroom visits.
This Tuesday,
February 24th their team came to RYNJ to engage in three
sessions. The first session focused on having teachers build
a satellite and in doing so, answer the question, “how do GPS
systems work?” Through engaging in this activity, teachers were able to learn
more about sound waves and basic physics. Utilizing the approach of learning
through doing, the teachers were simultaneously learning about one of the most
innovative concepts in science education today, the Maker Movement. They
then discussed the real world application of this Maker Movement activity to a
classroom. Our RYNJ teachers do this project in the spring with the 5th
grade. Chinese teachers teach physics in elementary, middle, and high
school as well. Next, teachers worked collaboratively using RYNJ and
Columbia University writing methodology to enhance the way lab reports are
utilized in science classrooms. They watch a demo of a powder investigation our 3rd graders do and created templates
for innovative writing assignments around the activity. The third
session, run by Elle Barkin from Fair Lawn, consisted of engineering related inquiry based science approaches where
teachers were able to generate their own hypothesis and create experiments to
solve it involving building towers out of pasta and marshmallows.
Our science
coordinator, Penina Richman helped plan the event with our two educational
technologists, Rabbi Efraim Clair and Rabbi Dov Hochbaum. Ron Durso, the
Supervisor of Science at Fair Lawn School District was key in help running the conference and came to present about the
recent focus of Engineering on science education in NJ state science
standards. He also ran one of the three mini sessions. Fair Lawn also brought four
science teachers to attend. RYNJ teachers worked collaboratively with
Beijing teachers and Fair Lawn teachers on these science related projects
and discuss implementation of new science techniques in the classrooms both
here and in Beijing. Rabbi Horn, the principal of Judaic Studies for the
elementary school had lunch with them to discuss the importance of time
management in curricular instruction.
Tuesday afternoon
their team visited Fair Lawn Memorial Middle School. There they got to see science courses, a dynamic math course that incorporates STEM subjects together, and a Chinese language class. They spoke with the teachers afterwards about new initiatives, like the next generation science standards and how they are affecting Fair Lawn schools. Teachers from China spoke about how small American classes were and asked questions about group based learning. It was a very great collaborative day!
On Thursday, after they spent the morning at Ridgewood with Tara Taylor's terrific science team visiting classes and speaking with teachers, they came back to RYNJ to visit our classes, speak with Cindy Wiesel about blended learning, and participate in a Q and A about American teaching. We were so proud of our 8th grade boys who actually spent time rehearsing beforehand and then spoke to the teachers in Chinese! It was another great day of learning and a wonderful experience for all involved.