Teacher Find Way to Engage Kids

By COLlive reporter

As a teacher in the Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch boys school in Montreal, Rabbi Shmuly Kaufmann came to the realization that “more and more kids are growing up with electronic devices in their hands.”

Born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana and having attended Chabad’s local Torah Academy day school, Rabbi Kaufmann is accustomed to out-of-the-box and interactive style learning.

When he began teaching in the Montreal Yeshiva he brought that creativity with him.

“Within a few weeks on the job, I quickly realized that the Talmidim weren’t very interested in hearing me talk all day,” he told COLlive.com. “I knew I had to come up with another way of getting them to absorb the material.”

Rabbi Kaufmann says he began experimenting with creating games for students to better hone their learning skills in Chumash. “They really enjoyed the games. But equally important, I began seeing a sharp increase in their Chumash skills.”

After seeing success in his own classroom, Rabbi Kaufmann reached out to fellow educators throughout the world to offer use of the games in their classrooms.

He says the feedback was consistently positive. “Many, many Talmidim were experiencing higher test scores and improved learning experiences,” he proudly stated. “I realized it was time to take this concept to the next level.”

So Rabbi Kaufmann went online and created the educational gaming website for Jewish children – www.TorahGames.org.

The site, donated by Dovid and Malkie Smetana and the Gniwisch, Gansbourg and Krasnanski families, was launched shortly before the start of the new 5777 school year and is already averaging over 1,000 unique visits a month.

While this is a good start, Rabbi Kaufmann says he believes it’s only the tip of the iceberg and sees the utilization of gaming and technology as the future of learning.

“I believe there are many areas where we can grow and improve,” he says. Being that we’re still in the developmental stages, feedback and critique from students, parents and teachers really helps to guide the direction of the site.”

As an example, after receiving requests to make the games available on mobile and tablet devices, Rabbi Kaufmann starting making apps for the games.

Two apps are already available for free download on for Anroid devices on GooglePlay – Alef Beis and Nekudos. It will soon also be available for Apple iOS devices.

Rabbi Kaufmann is offering teachers or parents to contact him to customized the games to their unique subject material by emailing [email protected].