Farkas, Rhonda Dawn

Dr. Rhonda Dawn Farkas received her Ed.D. from St. John’s University and now serves as Superintendent of District 22 in Brooklyn, NY. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at St. John's University and Adjunct Associate Professor at Brooklyn College. Dr. Farkas has published articles on curriculum development and has also recently written a book chapter that deals with educating parents in identifying and accommodating their children’s learning styles to help them succeed in school.

How to Teach the Holocaust to Middle School Students

2007 0-7734-5481-0
This study examines the relationships among a sampling of 105 seventh-grade students’ achievement scores, attitudes toward instructional approaches, empathy scales, and the transfer of skills between traditional versus multi-sensory education. The dependent variables for this investigation were gain scores on achievement and empathy post-tests scores on an attitudinal survey, and weighted average scores obtained from transfer tasks. The independent variable was the instructional methodology employed. After determining the learning-style preferences of the students, a Control Group was formed to which lessons about the Holocaust were delivered according to traditional teaching methods (reading from textbook, graphic organizers, and responding to questions, in small groups or independently) while another Experimental Group was taught the same content using multi-sensory instructional resources and working in small groups. After this attitudinal and empathetic differences were gauged, as well as the students’ transfer of skills. In the end, this data, after being subjected to a statistical analysis, supports the implementation of a multi-sensory rather than a traditional approach for teaching lessons on the Holocaust.