Teamwork demonstrated at robotics festival – Sun Sentinel

Jewish students recently enjoyed working with their classmates in teams while participating in the first Miami Jewish Day School Robotics Festival at Scheck Hillel Community School in North Miami Beach.

This festival was hosted by the Center for the Advancement of Jewish Education in Miami in collaboration with the Yerucham Science Center in Israel and showcased the technological creations of students from Scheck Hillel and the Hebrew Academy (RASG) and Lehrman Community Day School, both in Miami Beach. All three schools are first-year participants in the Miami Jewish Day School Robotics Program, an innovative approach to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education that combines mathematics and science with Lego education and enables participating third- and fourth-grade students to grasp robotics principles and work collaboratively to solve problems.

This program is funded through a $40,000 grant from the Miami/Yerucham Partnership, a collaboration between the Greater Miami Jewish Federation and its Israeli partnership city of Yerucham, and facilitated by CAJE, a subsidiary agency of the Federation.

Valerie Mitrani, CAJE's director of day school strategy and initiatives, said the recent festival was exciting.

"It was really the culmination of a year with lots of exciting learning in the schools and it was our first attempt to do something like this and we were very pleased with the results."

Mitrani noted that the students were engaged and excited. She mentioned that CAJE and the Miami/Yerucham Partnership are working to expand this program to all Federation-supported Jewish day schools in Miami-Dade County.

Asaf Shalev, deputy manager of Yerucham Science Center, was impressed with the local students' level of understanding.

"They reached a really high level of building the robots and understanding the way to create the code, so I was quite happy and impressed with the work that was done."

Eli Fischbach, third grade student at Scheck Hillel, said about the program and festival, "I learned how to code at school and loved practicing for the festival with all my friends and with the team from Yerucham who helped with the program."

Samantha Cedrati, a fourth grade student at Scheck Hillel who was one of five students from her grade who volunteered her time to come after school to learn this and help out, said about the festival, "It was really fun, and I think working as a team is better than working on your own because if you make a mistake, your team can help you figure it out and maybe help you build something even better than what you would build on your own."

Scheck Hillel educators Nancy Penchev, I Lab instructor, and Nilam Patel, lower school science teacher, thought the students were able to gain the value of teamwork through this program and festival.

"They were working together and helping one another," Patel said.

Penchev said, "One of the things I try to instill in our students is that failure is just temporary."

"We're learning from our failures and they demonstrated that tremendously. I told them over and over how proud I was of them because nobody gave up."

Craig Carpentieri, the school's chief academic officer, said that the program is "an opportunity for our children to really explore their passions."

Several third grade students from Hebrew Academy expressed their festival excitement.

"We thought we were a very good team and while we were there we were so welcomed," said Hebrew Academy third grade student Caleb Gdanski.

Genie Bensimon, Hebrew Academy's third grade general studies teacher, said, "The students were very dedicated and worked very well."

Rabbi Avi Bossewitch, the school's dean of academic affairs, noted that through the program, he's seen a "surge of energy, momentum and excitement" at the Hebrew Academy.

Fourth grade students from Lehrman were also interviewed about their festival experiences, but the school asked that their last names not be disclosed.

Ethan said, "It was fun and exciting to work in a team."

Liza said, "I like having team members because whenever I needed help, some people helped me."

Julian said, "My favorite part was when you're on a table, and you have a little amount of time, you may get all stressed out, but at the end, you do it well."

Leah said, "It's so exciting because you don't know what the judges are going to think of what you programmed and everything, so you try to do your best."

Ilana Traub, Lehrman's media and technology specialist, said regarding the festival, "I think it was a great culmination for what they have learned throughout the year."

Jodi Bruce, head of school, noted that one of the nice qualities of the program is that Yerucham "brought all of their expertise, trained their teachers for a week and even gave more of their time as they came down."

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Teamwork demonstrated at robotics festival - Sun Sentinel