1) Get everyone on the same page
- Every text has a link - a URL that appears in your browser. As you click around - opening commentaries or new texts - that URL will change. Share it out with those you are teaching and get everyone on the same page, even without creating a sheet.
- Sefaria pairs with email, text, WhatsApp, Zoom, etc. Create a learning experience anytime, anywhere.
2) Empower yourself and your community with Sefaria's library
- Experiment with having your learners click through the library to open sources. If you are worried about people getting lost, share your screen, stop for check-ins, and be patient. You can streamline your process down the line if your learners develop the skills to find the texts you start with.
- Deputize lay leaders, parents, teens, and college students. Anyone who is tech savvy can help someone else use Sefaria.
3) Move your curriculum online
- Building materials with Sefaria: use sheets and groups to put all your materials in this digital, easy to adapt and easy to share format
- Over-communicate: Be a sharer in times of crisis! Make your materials public or at least accessible within your school or professional community
- Let your community build with you. Encourage others to add and share their sheets, so that everyone benefits from everyone else's work
4) Use all available media for communal experiences
- Focus energy around Jewish rituals or prayers that families may choose to preserve, or ones they may choose to take on
- Consider short videos, audio recordings, collaborative sheets, and consider including any media that students/teens are using. Sefaria's source sheets allow for you to include any media, so think about all the different ways you want to communicate
5) Show and Tell
- Sefaria's groups are a great way to showcase learning that's shared across a class, school, or community.
- A sheet set to anyone can add, or a sheet crafted by an educator that incorporates student artwork (like this one) or answers, can be a great way to give everyone a sense of accomplishment (Here's a great example that got parents involved, and here's some student work)
- Anyone can take a picture, respond with a reflection, or share a favorite song. Consider ways to gamify / incentivize (consider this fourth grade d'var Torah, or our Sefaria student course for ideas).
6) Holidays and celebrations
- Educate around the holiday using Sefaria's new Seder on Sefaria group
- Consider making a customized Haggadah, among families, classes, or congregants (Ashkenazi Haggadah Template or Edot Hamizrach Haggadah Template) (Here's a fun family Haggadah)
7) Assign work
- Send source sheets to your students by using the assignment feature.
- Students receive their own copy of the sheet which they can work on individually, in pairs, or in small groups.
- Respond to your students' work on their sheets, which are automatically shared with you.
8) Create a Digital Portfolio
- Instead of handouts, binders, and folders, try sheets and groups on Sefaria
- Digital materials, stored in your students' Sefaria accounts (or Google classroom, etc.) ensure that your students can learn from past work and circle back as needed. A sheet about the Torah portion this week can provide food for thought years down the line, as sheets on Sefaria remain linked to the texts that they quote.
9) Invite Collaboration
- Create a sheet, set it to "anyone can add" or "anyone can edit" and invite colleagues to co-create with you by sharing the link
- Students can collaborate, too! Anyone fifth grade and up can co-create a sheet, by adding sources, audio, video, or reflections to a sheet that you start, or by creating their own and working with other students or family members
10) Appreciate - and Draw On - Sefaria's Torah Ecosystem
- Especially in a time of social isolation, it is enriching to see all the different resources that exist on Sefaria. Use our "sheets" feature or the "web pages" option in the sidebar to see all of the evolving resources that users and other Jewish websites create regularly
- Search on Sefaria: Look up themes or concepts that are of interest to students by using Sefaria's search bar to find texts or sheets that speak directly to the issues at hand.