CET and the Trump Foundation will convene a joint learning process with 20 seventh grade mathematics teachers to better understand their needs for using a personalized learning plan.
In 7th grade, most students in Israel’s middle schools do not yet study mathematics in ability groupings. This leads to highly diverse classrooms which are comprised of students coming from several elementary schools with different backgrounds. The National MEITZAV exams in mathematics, which are taken in 5th and 8th grade, indicate that knowledge and skill gaps are significantly widening during this transition period.
The foundation’s theory of change indicates that a stronger bond between a teacher, a student and the parents that is based on the individual learning needs of the student, can help prepare more students to enter excellence tracks in 8th grade. We believe that this shared commitment could be structured around a personalized learning plan, which relies on cognitive and emotional diagnosis, and adapts the teaching and learning to goals and to incremental steps.
This idea of a personalized learning plan is inspiring and promising, but in reality, it reflects an aspiration of students and parents, more than of teachers. Teachers are used to addressing a class, and not each individual student. With more than 35 students in a 45 minutes lesson, it is impossible to provide attention to every student. Previous attempts have been over sophisticated, required special training and significant change in teaching practice, and therefore did not expand beyond a successful pilot.
We have discussed these complexities with the Center for Educational Technology (CET), one of Israel’s top developers of content and tools for schools, and a long-term partner of the foundation. CET already operates in hundreds of middle schools in Israel and it also identified this age level as a key area for its future work. Together, we are proposing to convene a joint learning process with teachers, to better understand their needs and constrains for using a personalized learning plan.
The learning will be based on a group of 20 teachers who teach 7th grade mathematics, engaging them in five intensive meetings over 4 months. Between the meetings, which will include guest lectures and workshops, the teachers will experiment and reflect on possible content, operation and technology for a personalized learning plan. The teachers will raise needs and challenges, share their experience and pilot-test with different tools in their classes, where they will collect data and share their feedback during online meetings held between the teachers, CET and the foundation.
At the end of the learning process, CET will assemble the data and insights from the teachers, and edit them in a detailed paper. The document will present a needs assessment and feasibility analysis on how to build personalized learning plans for 7th grade mathematics students, with a goal of preparing more students for the excellence track in 8th grade. The intention is that this document will guide a possible future development effort by CET.