Improving Student Engagement with Havruta Routines in the General and Judaic Studies Classrooms
Webinar Date: Mar 11, 2026
Presenter: Allison Cook, Dr. Orit Kent
The ancient Jewish practice of Havruta when combined with 21st-century learning science is a powerful strategy for fostering deep, joyful, and skillful student engagement. More than learning in pairs, Havruta equips each individual student to engage with their content and with one another in increasingly independent and substantive ways–whether they’re studying Chumash, Talmud, or even math.
Allison Cook
Allison Cook is a teacher, educator, and educational designer specializing in the creation of vibrant Jewish learning programs for students of all ages as well as substantive professional communities of practice in Jewish education. Allison has published both scholarly and popular articles on this work, has created practical tools and frameworks to improve teaching and learning, and conducts trainings, consultations and coaching with educators. Bringing to her work a rich background in informal education, Allison has designed and led numerous professional development programs across educational contexts to improve teaching practice as well as educational leadership. As the founding Coordinator of the Clinical Mentor Faculty Program at Hebrew College, Allison worked with cohorts of congregational school leaders to mentor their teachers and graduate students in Jewish education. She also served as the Senior Educator on a multi-year initiative on the implementation of “Pluralism” at Boston’s Jewish Community Day School, leading the full faculty and parent community in a comprehensive effort.
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Dr. Orit Kent
Dr. Orit is a long time Jewish educator, teacher-educator, researcher and writer, with experience teaching both children and adults. She has been involved in the design and implementation of numerous professional and leadership development programs and was a lecturer in the education program at Brandeis University for many years. As a senior research associate at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education, she led a multi-year research and design effort focused on developing conceptual and practical tools for improving peer-based learning with elementary, middle school and university students. In her role as a senior researcher at Helix Learning Partners, she continues to conduct targeted investigations of educational programs to help explain how and how well they worked. Orit’s early professional experience as a community organizer provides her with a lens into how leaders develop and build values-based organizations. Orit has published and lectured widely on her work and is co-author of the award winning book, A Philosophy of Havruta. An alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, Orit holds a doctorate in Education and Jewish Studies from Brandeis University, an Ed.M. in Teaching and Learning from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in history from Yale University.