About the Center

The Center for Studies in Jewish Education and Culture (CSJEC) seeks to advance our theoretical understandings of culture, relationship, and teacher identity and develop new models for teachers' professional development. Combining active research projects with in-depth professional development the CSJEC aims to maintain a strong bridge between theory and practice. The CSJEC also offers rigorous courses of study including a Graduate Certificate in Jewish Education focused on developing and improving educators' pedagogical skills and the acquisition of general content knowledge of Jewish culture and history.

Currently, the CSJEC participates in a Signature Grant from the Covenant Foundation in partnership with the University of Michigan and RAVSAK, the organization of community Jewish Day Schools. This grant supports the facilitation of, research on and professional development for teachers to implement an on-line simulation game for middle school students called The Jewish Court of All Time. This game is supported by university mentors at the University of Cincinnati and the University of Michigan. Hand in hand with creating and participating in these exciting innovative learning environments, members of CSJEC study the nature of learning that occurs therein. Findings from these studies have been presented at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry and the American Educational Research Association.

Since 2007, the CSJEC has also offered professional development seminars for teachers in North America to deepen their subject knowledge expertise and develop reflective and relational pedagogies concerning the teaching of Jewish culture. Funded by local foundations, the Ohio Humanities Council, and the Posen Foundation - US, these seminars have included over 200 teachers. Assuming an educational action research stance, the CSJEC has actively investigated the nature of our participants' learning. Results of these studies have been presented at the American Educational Research Association conferences, the Ethnography in Education Research Forum- University of Pennsylvania, the North American Network for Research on Jewish Education, and the Israel Association for Research in Jewish Education, Findings have been published in Teaching and Teacher Education, Journal of Educational Change and Journal of Jewish Education.

In addition to important funding that has made our work possible, talented graduate students help create a vibrant learning community through graduate assistantships, research apprenticeships, and interpretive learning communities.

Contact us by calling 513-556-2150 or by emailing Mark Raider.

Here's what teachers are saying about their experiences with us:

"The seminar was by far the most beneficial and inspiring professional development I have ever taken part in during my 12-year teaching career. The venue was spectacular, the faculty was knowledgeable, approachable and responsive, and the material was as thought-provoking as it was practically useful. I came away from the seminar with a much deeper understanding of the complexities of the Jewish community, a broader appreciation of the plethora of available primary-source materials, pedagogical concepts that inform and improve the quality of my teaching, and, on a personal level, the rekindled joy in my own learning." - Judith Neidlein-Dial, The Seven Hills School, Cincinnati, OH

"The [Posen Foundation] seminar was wonderful. It provided me with a wealth of historical and philosophical information on Jewish studies that sped up my own research and study in an incalculable way. The book 'Jewish People, Jewish Thought' was just the kind of background material I was looking for and that I might not have found without out the help of the seminar. In addition, there was plenty of eye-opening material on early American Jewish life that I was also not familiar with, and was pleased to discover. My teaching of a Jewish Literature elective will be resting on a much firmer historical background thanks to the seminar." - Sandor Weiner, The Spence School, New York, NY

"The Posen Seminar was a tremendously valuable experience for me. It seems to me to be especially important, as a person of the [majority] culture, to attend seriously to the voices of people not of the [majority] culture. Even the scheduling of the first day of workshop taking place on Sunday morning was a reminder of the cultural orientations that would be challenged in our study." - Bradley Sidle, Ramsey International Fine Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN