<HTML>I have been teaching Gemara and Halakha to the tenth grade at Ma'ayanot
Yeshiva High School for Girls in Teaneck, NJ for the past 2 years, and in
that time, I have tried an experiment that I think might be of interest
to the lookjed list.
In trying to figure out how to help my students remember what they learn
(both skills and content), my husband Eitan and I came up with the idea
of cumulative testing throughout the year. That is, every test I gave was
like a final on all the material until that point. I called it a
"chazarah" section -- there were basic review questions on the "old"
material, and she'elot beiyun on the new, or as yet untested material.
This may sound like an unmanageable challenge for the girls because there
was too much material on every test, but it was not - partially because
of the way the class works. We have chavruta time before they see
virtually any source, and I spend a lot of time in class on each source -
figuring out how to read it, discussing the implications, etc.
Therefore, we do not cover dapim and dapim of Gemara in each unit. When
they are tested on "old" material, they are required to be able to
punctuate the text, be it a Gemara, a rishon, or an acharon, and they
must be able to answer basic questions about what we learned. Also, they
are responsible for a vocabulary list of the words from the last unit
that are common terms which will reappear. =20
I have had excellent results: the girls actually remember words and
phrases from Gemarot we learned at the beginning of the year, and they
feel sense of ownership over the material that is wonderful to see. Even
girls from last year's class remember a nice amount of what we learned. I
think that this idea is translatable into a Gemara class that covers more
ground more quickly as well as a Tanakh or any other class, by limiting
the sources you will retest. Choose just the Gemara without rishonim, or
just certain Ramban's and ibn Ezra's that you consider the most crucial to
remember.
I'm interested to hear reactions or suggestions.
Sally Mayer</HTML>
