Digital Campus for Self-learning by Secondary School Students

The Israeli public education system is facing enormous challenges due to implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. Schools are struggling to maintain continuity and mitigate the effects of growing gaps. Hectic transitions between lockdowns, quarantine and learning pods make it almost impossible to give students a quality learning experience. Under these challenging circumstances and reduced class time, it becomes very difficult to keep to the full curriculum and thus schools are now focusing their efforts on core content. The future effects of this situation are worrisome and unclear.

On the other hand, these times create new opportunities as well. The transition to online learning has shifted the educational focus and has become more student-centered. Agile and motivated students, who self-regulate their learning and make relentless efforts, are now able to thrive and flourish. Many parents are becoming more aware of their children’s difficulties. They can either pause and wait for a system restart or encourage their children to take action, help them reflect on their dreams and ambitions, and take responsibility for their own future.

In discussing these developments with our colleagues at Yad Hanadiv (Rothschild Family Foundation), we jointly thought about how philanthropy could be of assistance. We have noticed that there are many scattered online courses that are offered to students on a variety of topics and with varying quality. However, there is no “educational Netflix,” a one-stop shop that can analyze their needs, adjust to their interests, offer high quality curated content, and provide them with the individual and social support that is so crucial for effective learning to happen.

We commissioned a representative sample survey among 12-18 year old students and discovered that 66% said that they would actively participate in such a learning platform. More than 60% of the parents replied that they were willing to pay for such a service. Both students and parents emphasized the importance of relevant content that prepares students for the future, focusing on mathematics, English, and computers, as well as topics that are not taught in the formal curriculum, such as financial literacy and medicine. The students claimed that they would invest 3-4 hours per week in such a learning experience, and stressed the important role of individual coaching in supporting them throughout the learning process.

Together with Yad Hanadiv, we issued a call for proposals among relevant not-for-profit organizations. In parallel, we shared our thoughts with the Ministry of Finance and with “Digital Israel” (a national governmental initiative that harnesses technology to education and other social services), which responded enthusiastically. We proposed that philanthropy take the first step in catalyzing a change, to produce a well-managed pilot product, while keeping close contact with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance and other government agencies along the way. This close dialogue will aim to enable government to step in to take responsibility for expanding the content, scaling up the operations, and ensuring longer-term sustainability of the platform.

The chosen proposal is a program presented by Appleseeds Academy.  Founded in 2000 by Leon Recanati, Appleseeds operates online courses and digital communities across the country for adults and youth, mostly from the social periphery of Israel. The content of the courses is focused primarily on coding and computer networks, as well as on college and career readiness. Currently, more than 80,000 students participate in these programs. Appleseeds is a trusted grantee-partner of Yad Hanadiv.

In response to our request, Appleseeds is proposing a two-year program in which an online learning platform will be developed, engaging up to 30,000 middle school and high school students in learning a variety of subject areas. Participants will go through a digital intake process after which an appropriate learning path will be proposed in line with their interests, skills, and learning preferences. The learning paths will represent different domains of interest, such as high-tech, medicine and astronomy. Each path will comprise up to 100 hours of learning, with an arsenal of short and long courses. The courses will focus on knowledge and skills that will be offered at incremental levels of difficulty.

A coach will moderate each learning path by mentoring and encouraging students to persevere with their studies and to interact with each other. For this purpose, the coach will use social media and competitions, organize joint workshops and group meetings, and involve the students in presentations and discussions. The students will rate each course and provide feedback to help other students make more informed decisions and to help improve the intake and recommendations processes and the overall management of the platform.

Within three months, a beta version will be pilot tested with 2,000 students in two learning paths, scaling up to 10,000 students in five learning paths during the first year. By the second year, 20,000 additional students will join the program, expanding to 10 learning paths. In discussion with Appleseeds, we stressed that our interest is solely focused on excelling middle school students of mathematics and the sciences. We estimated that this sub-group represents about 33% of the scope of the program.

This program will be complex and incredibly challenging. It will require deep partnerships with content producers and course developers, since the intention is to use “off the shelf” content products. It will also require an ongoing dialogue with the government to determine when and how they take over after the two year pilot. Government funding will need to be cultivated, whether through a central tender or via vouchers for the participating students. Concurrently, and more importantly, the program will need to quickly prove its educational contribution and its reach among students – so as to provide crucial resources during the Covid-19 crisis.

* The text presented above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation Board / Grant 413