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If you enter the room during one of Nechama Malkiel’s Grade 4 Judaic Studies classes, you may hear students sing, to the tune of “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”: “A havruta is a triangle of three; my partner and my text and my me!” before diving into their regular partner work.

This may be confusing for some—after all, havruta refers to a traditional method of studying Jewish texts in pairs. But it reflects a key philosophy of the Pedagogy of Partnership (or PoP) educational model: using havruta learning to forge meaningful, engaging relationships between students and their partners as well as the materials they are studying. With this approach, the material becomes a “third partner,” an active force in students’ learning.

MILTON currently has 5 teachers who implement Pedagogy of Partnership in their classrooms. As part of their involvement with PoP they receive training, customizable tools and materials, and ongoing mentorship. Although PoP uses an approach traditional to Jewish text study, educators regularly implement its ideas and methods across subjects for both standalone lessons and ongoing projects.

In Grade 4 General Studies, Hanina Goldstein led students in working in partnerships to figure out the physical appearance of a character from a book. Individually, students underlined phrases from the text and brought their findings to their partnerships. Together, students discussed and drew a sketch of the character. 

Also in Grade 4, Vinny Prell led a lesson in world religions by first giving students photos depicting different religions and instructing them to write down observations of what may be important to this religion. Then, in partnerships, students circled words that their partners didn’t write down, added words to their lists that their partners wrote but they didn’t, and discussed their similarities and differences with their partners, eventually coming to a collaborative statement about their assigned religion.

In these lessons, the PoP method helps students gain new understandings of content that they may not have otherwise encountered. Students often bring differing perspectives and interpretations to their partnerships, exposing their peers to new ideas and demonstrating that analysis does not always lead to one definitive conclusion. These partnerships also help students hone skills for collaborating with others, coming to agreements, presenting evidence to support their ideas, and maintaining a healthy dialogue. Finally, teachers report that students are highly engaged and excited about lessons when using this method.

PoP also equips students with important skills for the future. PoP says that experienced students engage more meaningfully with ideas, content, and other people because of the relational approach to the world that they learn to hone, becoming skilled critical thinkers with strong emotional intelligence. 

Students are also instructed in specific skills for partner work and engaging with texts, which can be applied to academic and non-academic settings throughout their lives. PoP materials often guide students step-by-step through partner work by prompting different ways to engage with texts and one another and connecting this to named skills such as noticing, listening & articulating, wondering & focusing, and supporting & challenging.

In Grade 5 math, for example, Evelyn Schwartz uses the PoP method to guide students in developing successful math partnerships. Students learn how working in pairs can lead to more enhanced learning and some characteristics of strong partners such as helping one another learn by showing work instead of just giving an answer. Students also learn helpful questions they can ask math partners such as, “Is your answer reasonable and how do you know?”

In Grade 5 Judaic Studies, Jael Goldstein used the PoP method for an extended deep dive on the first nine of the Ten Plagues. Each student pair focused on one specific plague, strengthening their “noticing” and “wondering” skills through finding specific details in the text and asking questions about them, leading to both straightforward and creative interpretations. The unit culminated in the pairs presenting their learnings to the class.

We are excited to grow our cohort of PoP-trained teachers and to continue to partner with the Hadar Institute and its many wonderful resources.

Jael Goldstein instructs students on respectful listening in their partnerships. Slide reads: “I have something to learn, I have something to teach.”

Evelyn Schwartz displays a slide about math partnerships with a student reflection on what we can gain from working with others.

Vinny Prell displays instructions for working individually and then with partners in a social studies lesson.