Kinematics Course in 100 Excellence Classes

A year ago, the Technion started developing a physics course focusing on kinematics, which uses advanced mathematics modeling. When the proposal was considered by the foundation, the reviewers feared that since kinematics is not part of the curriculum, teachers would have minimal motivation to teach it and therefore take it only as an enrichment activity for a select group of excellence students. As a result, the program was approved to be pilot-tested on small scale, in order to check how it is actually used, its effect on student learning and how much appetite there is for it among teachers and the Ministry of Education.

In practice, the pilot program operated over the past year, and included the development of three units (equivalent to 15 hours of learning), and their implementation in 17 ninth grade excellence classes, most of them in the Science Technology Program classes of the Ministry of Education. The units were designed to teach students how to use and create mathematical and computational models of physical and engineering concepts.

The participating teachers enrolled in a 30-hour training course, where they learned the content and how to use student performance data to improve their teaching. The teachers then used the content in their classes and returned with positive feedback. Most of them are interested in continuing to teach the course next year. They implemented the full 15 hours with all students in their class whose learning was later assessed through a test aligned with basic PISA mathematical modeling skills. An independent review of the tasks observed that the level of difficulty on the PISA scale would be proficiency levels 3 or 4.

These results led the Technion to seek the foundation’s assistance in scaling up the scope of the program to 100 additional teachers. They plan to upgrade the material so it will align with PISA’s 5-6 proficiency levels and to develop three more units, so that the program will cover a total of 60 hours, during a full study year. The units will be presented using an incremental learning process, and will include videos explaining the material, interactive tasks, simulation-based inquiry activities, and evaluation of the students and reports for the teachers. All content and the website will be translated and available in both Hebrew and Arabic.

The units will be taught by 100 science teachers to ninth grade students as part of two weekly supplementary hours over the whole year, starting with 35 classes next school year in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. The teachers will participate in a preparatory course and will receive support throughout the year. The success of the program will be measured by a diagnostic test developed by CET, on which at least 80% of the participating students will meet the PISA 5-6 proficiency levels in mathematics.