Over three years, existing mathematics teachers will be trained to teach advanced levels, increasing the rate of students graduating the advanced mathematics track
Over the last five years, in line with the national trend, schools in the North of Israel have experienced a drop in the rate of students graduating the advanced five-unit mathematics track. While the national percentage of those who graduated 12th grade fell from 14.1% in 2008 to 10.7% in 2012, in the Northern District the rate decreased from 11.3% to 7.6%. This decline is caused in many cases due to the shortage of adequately prepared teachers.
Various initiatives are now underway to tackle this problem, including the Virtual High School which provides remote access to quality instruction, as well as a new government program which aims to deepen the mathematics knowledge of existing teachers who do not hold a degree in mathematics. These programs are important and effective; however the Northern District assumes they will not suffice.
To supplement these efforts, the district approached the Technion with a proposal to train existing mathematics teachers to teach the advanced level. Seventy-two such teachers, who hold sufficient academic accreditation, will be selected to join the program. These teachers will be nominated from schools in which there is a large enough pool of students to justify the opening of a second class of advanced mathematics. Two teachers in each school will be mentored by the existing teacher of the advanced track, with close support from the Technion.
As the program begins, and over a period of three years, the new teachers will gradually teach five-unit level mathematics to a tenth grade class until graduation. Joint work between the mentor and mentees will involve writing lesson plans, observing one another teach, providing feedback and adapting the lesson plans following the experience. The lesson plans will be written using a wiki platform developed by the Technion. In addition, the Technion’s staff will conduct seminars and schools visits, and will use video documentation of instruction to provide feedback and engage in professional discussion with the participants.
The Department of Science Teaching at the Technion is a hub of expertise in this subject, and for many years operated the National Center for Secondary School Mathematics Teachers. Professor (Emeritus) Nitsa Movshovitz-Hadar, who leads the project, was the founder and head of the Teacher Center and is still very active in trying to engage teachers to build lesson plans using a collaborative digital platform. If approved, the funds for this program will be channeled through the Samuel Neaman Institute, which functions as a non-profit daughter association of the Technion.
The Northern District set a goal for the program to help increase the rate of students graduating the advanced mathematics track from 7.6% to 10% over a period of five years, and has agreed to compensate all teachers participating in the program for an additional 3 weekly hours for the full duration of the program.