By Elizabeth T. Rahaim
Photo by Ben Harmon
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When
Rabbi Peretz Rodman BHL'76 enters the classroom, it's through his home computer in Jerusalem. He can't see his students, but he can hear and advise them as they study a text on the screen
hevruta style from their own homes, as far away as Zurich and New York.
"I'm thrilled to be a part of this new development,
redefining what it means to be an online student,"
says Rodman.
This fall,
Hebrew College Online (
HCO) has recreated the
hevruta experience through the Virtual Bet Midrash, part of the 4-credit Gateway courses needed to complete the online Master of Arts in Jewish Studies program. Rodman, visiting lecturer in Hebrew language and literature, is pioneering the program as its first instructor for the 2005-2006 academic year.
The Virtual Bet Midrash is analogous to a classroom on the computer screen. Each week, students log in to find themselves in a "lobby," where they select a prescheduled conference room to meet their
hevruta, or study partner. Equipped with headsets and microphones, they discuss the text on their screens. Using whiteboard software, students show what they do not understand by circling or underlining words or phrases. And when a problem arises, they send a message to their instructor for help.
"Peretz is a great addition to our online faculty," says Dr. Barry Mesch, Hebrew College Provost. "Through his experience in Israel and in the US, he will help us develop new strategies to empower the online learner to access Hebrew texts in the original."
A resident of Israel since 1990, Rodman also teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Rothberg International School and has extensive training in Hebrew language and applied linguistics. Although he has many years of classroom teaching experience, it was not until 2002 that Rodman considered the Internet as a learning tool.
During his tenure as a divisional editor of MyJewishLearning.com, he says, "I worked with people who thought deeply and incisively about teaching people whom you're not standing with or sitting with, and what the effect of that would be."
Rodman developed his ideas into a curriculum for the Virtual Bet Midrash's debut semester. During the
hevruta study sessions, he is available for questions and visits the virtual conference rooms to see if students need his help. He also directs students to online Judaic reference materials or scans and sends documents electronically to enhance students' learning and replicate the physical bet midrash experience of studying in a library.
"I'd like to help foster a sense for hco students that they are part of a community of learners making meaning of a text, not merely receiving the meaning from recondite faculty. That's what the Virtual Bet Midrash can do," he says.
Rodman first joined the Hebrew College community as a Prozdor student in 1969. He earned his Bachelor of Hebrew Literature from the College in 1976 and continued to study there after graduating from Brandeis University with bachelor's and master's degrees. He was later accepted into the first group of Jerusalem Fellows, which funded his studies of Hebrew language and applied linguistics at Hebrew University from 1982 to 1985. Growing as a scholar, writer, editor, translator and teacher, Rodman held a range of positions in Israel and the US before his rabbinic ordination at the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in 1999.
Now, as the Virtual Bet Midrash instructor, he looks forward to teaching classical texts to students around the world: "I'm thrilled to be a part of this new development, which is on the cutting edge of distance learning and redefining what it means to be an online student-at Hebrew College and beyond."
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