Educating by Understanding Our Learners

What can social science and education research help us understand about how people learn?

We are asking first-principle questions about the nature of Jewish education and, even more fundamentally, how do we learn anything? The science of learning is a rich and established field of academic study that has a lot to teach us when we think about our vision for Jewish learning. Yet, for all of its rich resources, Jewish education has no theory of learning.

As part of our Emergent Strategy at the Jim Joseph Foundation, we have a desire to explore new and more effective pathways in understanding and practicing Jewish education. To this end, we looked to familiarize ourselves with landmark research and learning theory. We turned to Ari Y. Kelman, the Jim Joseph Professor of Education and Jewish Studies at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. Kelman shares a model for how people learn that we think is foundational for understanding more about how people learn to be Jewish. 

As opposed to starting with specific pieces of “content” or knowledge that people need to acquire to learn to be Jewish, Kelman illuminates, more fundamentally and impactfully, how people learn. By understanding the obvious and less obvious ways in which people learn, we begin to better understand effective approaches, interventions and modalities needed to achieve educational impact and desired outcomes.

The model posits that learning how to do or be Jewish is not actually uniquely or exceptionally Jewish; 80% of the ways that people learn to be Jewish can be explained by understanding how all humans learn anything. Often educational approaches are dwarfed by and blinded to this much larger learning context. Failing to acknowledge, examine or understand the relationship between learning in general and learning to be Jewish will curtail the effectiveness of Jewish education.

The model, described in part below, is an important shift to centering learners before programs.

Read the full piece in eJewish Philanthropy. 

Stacie Cherner is the Director of Research and Learning and Yonah Schiller is the Chief R&D Officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation.