Experiential Learning Activities
History of Israel Video Series
Use the history of Israel videos inside and outside the classroom. Run experiential learning activities in day schools, supplemental schools, camps, youth groups, synagogues and on college campuses.
Whether you’re teaching virtually or in person, these experiential activities can be utilized and adapted to your needs.
BUILD
activities based on select themes
DRIVE
meaningful discussion and reflection
EXPAND
your offering with games, role-play and debate
How does it work?
Activities are easy to facilitate
Follow the steps in each guide to run your activity, watch the video listed, and lead a discussion with relevant questions.
Get Started
Use the following facilitator’s guide to understand the structure of the experiential learning activities and how to incorporate them into your teaching.
Choose a Theme
Shalom Bayit
Shalom bayit is directly translated as peace (or wholeness) in the home, but is often used as a generalized term for the value of making certain choices and compromising for the sake of creating unity in a community or society. Through gameplay, interactive discussion, debate, movement and other experience-based activities, participants will encounter the challenge of pursuing that sense of peace as well as joy when unity is achieved.
Conflict
Courage
It is typical for people to participate in activities that are within their comfort zones. However, there are times in which one needs to step outside of his or her comfort zone and go against the grain. In the Courage module, participants will engage in a social experiment in order to observe how different factors influence courageous behavior. In addition, they will be encouraged to step outside of their comfort zones to showcase courage in an area in which they previously felt a lack of confidence.
Initiative
What does it mean to take initiative? What qualities are needed to take initiative? In this module, participants will explore the concept of taking initiative. Through activities and discussion, participants will deepen their understanding of initiative and consider how they can take more initiative in their own lives.
Leadership
Home
Is “home” where your family originates or where you put down the deepest roots? Through gameplay and discussion, participants will rely on their own emotions and experiences about being at home and being away from home in order to come to an understanding of how they perceive rights to a home and, in particular, a homeland. They will consider how identity and belonging impact our attitudes of “home.”
Sacrifice
Sometimes we are faced with the difficult decision to pursue a path that benefits others at cost to our own well-being. In the Sacrifice module, participants will be challenged to consider the difficult decisions that people make in order to make a positive impact on their family, community and society. Through discussion, role play, debate and other interactive experiences, participants will learn about the compromises required of us for a true sacrifice.
Compromise
What is the most ideal way to compromise? Through gameplay, discussion and observation in this module, your participants will experience different aspects of compromise. They will explore when it is best to compromise and when it is best to hold out for what you believe is right.
Self-Determination
Self-determination can be explored through many lenses, including personal and national. Participants will explore the challenges of achieving goals when there are no allies, as well as the feeling of success when upstanders help them accomplish what they set out to do.
Narrative
Who controls the narrative? In order to develop the skills in which to analyze various narratives and differentiate between narrative and history, participants will engage in interactive learning activities that will lead them on this journey. Participants will encounter an experience which demonstrates how their perspective can often influence their outlook of a particular situation and how to put themselves in someone else’s shoes.
Balanced Judgment
There are many difficult distinctions one must consider when exerting a fair and balanced judgment. In this module, participants will encounter interactive learning experiences that will ask them to think about how worldview (perspective) and bias shade our clarity in difficult situations. Participants will explore the nuance that comes with extending legitimate criticism to authority and how that ties into being fair and balanced even in our most passionate assertions.
