The Weizmann Institute of Science will train 500 instructional coaches on how to use classroom-based films with teachers in order to support student-centered teaching and how to adapt their teaching to diverse learning and thinking styles
Enabling teachers to learn from practice, while focusing on student learning and thinking, is at the heart of the Trump Foundation’s strategy. We learned that teachers improve their own practice, shifting from textbook-centered to student-focused teaching when they document their own teaching and receive feedback from a colleague or an instructional coach. On this basis, over the past few years, we have been encouraging pilot-testing the use of classroom-based videos, to allow teachers to observe, reflect, analyze, discuss, and receive feedback on their teaching practice.
However, for this kind of professional development to take place at scale, it should penetrate the formal professional development platforms in schools, municipalities and districts. Instructional coaches who guide teachers must master the technique, get acquainted with the methodologies, and develop routines and protocols for its integration. Teachers need to overcome the natural fear of being filmed and observed, and to feel confident to share their practice and their difficulties with their peers.
In light of this, in 2014 we began a pilot led by Dr. Yaron Lehavi – a former physics teacher and a member of the Trump Master Teacher Award committee, who has recently been appointed research fellow and head of the National Center for Physics Teachers at the Weizmann Institute, and Mr. Ami Baram – expert in group facilitation and the use of video for professional development. They developed workshops for 40 instructional coaches based on teachers filming themselves in the classroom. During the workshops the coach and the teachers conducted critical discussion of the teaching, how teacher divided the class to sub-groups, addressed diverse abilities and difficulties of students, and promoted mathematical thinking.
The pilot program generated high demand from teachers and from the Ministry of Education, who now wish to scale up the program at the Weizmann Institute in order to deepen its professional capacity and expand its scope. To do so, Weizmann Institute proposes to form a leading team of 12 chief instructional coaches (8 specializing in mathematics and 4 in physics) who will further develop the methods and materials and train 500 instructional coaches from different professional contexts. Designated courses will be developed for each of these target populations, including didactic coaches supporting teachers in their first years in the classroom, master teachers leading communities of practice of teachers and mathematics and science subject heads in schools.
The courses will provide training for the 500 instructional coaches on how to use classroom-based films with teachers in order to support student-centered teaching and how to adapt their teaching to diverse learning and thinking styles. Following the course, the coaches will go back to their different professional environments and work with mathematics and physics teachers to integrate the tools they have learned into their everyday work with teachers. The instructional coaches will receive ongoing support from the program staff for at least one year.
A designated website will be created for the coaches, which will show examples of the coaching and excerpt from lessons demonstrating different components of the method for mathematics and the sciences. The program proposes to convene two conferences with international experts in order to present case studies using filmed lessons to the professional community.