Course on Clinical Teaching For Mathematics Instructors

“Mathematics First”, the national program for increasing the number of 5-unit graduates began in 2015 with a sense of immediacy – it was launched after the beginning of the school year and quickly recruited 100 schools to the program. Together with the Ministry of Education and the Centre for Educational Technology (CET), the foundation launched a two-year course to nurture the professional capacity of the newly recruited instructors of the national program and to connect them with various opportunities and programs that operate in the field.

In this basic course, the instructors worked together to build a database mapping 5-unit students in their districts, and met to share their insights and difficulties. Their discussion concentrated on the needs of 5-unit teachers, and together they developed answers and solutions, supported by individual mentoring by the course coordinator. They then went on a study visit to England to learn from parallel examples and prepared a detailed report.

Now, it seems that the course needs to go deeper, in order to tackle current issues that the instructors have identified. For example, 150 schools across the country have opened 5-unit classes for the first time and their teachers, some of whom have never taught 5-unit mathematics before, require mentoring. In other schools, classes are very heterogeneous, and the teachers, who require specific solutions for struggling students, are feeling burned-out. They note that the huge dropout rate of students in 10^th grade has now decreased, however in some cases it shifted to the end of 11^th grade, just before the first matriculation test.

In response to these difficulties faced by teachers, CET is now proposing to extend the instructors’ course for another year. They wish to work in closer partnership with the foundation to expose the instructors of the national program to clinical teaching programs in a more systematic way, as part of their syllabus. Over the next year, the instructors will meet for eight group meetings of four hours each. Half of these will be dedicated to systematic acquaintance with foundation programs, such as professional communities for teachers, diagnostic tools for identifying student difficulties, using video and feedback as tools for improving teaching, and teaching practices for advancing growth mindset. The course coordinator will meet with each instructor for at least three individual mentoring sessions, and will accompany each of them to an instruction day in one of the schools they visit.

In addition, the Ministry wishes the course to include additional components, focusing on leadership, management, organizational and communication skills.

* The text presented above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation Board / Grant 272