Integrating 180 Teaching Assistants in Secondary School Classrooms, Every Year for 3 Years, to Increase Selection, Retention and Success in the Five Unit Majors in Mathematics and Physics
In 2013 the foundation approved a three-year grant to Shiur Acher to conduct a pilot program aimed to integrate high tech employees on a voluntary basis as teaching assistants for mathematics and science teachers in secondary schools. The goal was to assist teachers of the sciences in junior high schools to prepare and encourage more students to choose physics, and to help upper secondary teachers of five unit mathematics and physics to prevent dropouts. The program was tasked to pilot-test different models of assistance, to explore their effectiveness and to prepare a ‘business plan’ which will enable the program to expand, relying on growing funding from the participating players.
As per the financial self-sufficiency of the program, several steps have already been taken. At the outset, all expenses were covered by the Trump Foundation grant, nevertheless, in the third year of the grant the foundation pays for only 50%, and the remainder is secured via partnerships the organization has forged companies, municipalities and school networks, as well as with the Ministry of Education which funds the training of volunteers. These indicators of success have led Shiur Acher to seek our help to expand the program to 540 volunteers over a period of three years (180 every year). A final, fade-out grant from the foundation it sought in order to incentivize potential partners, to maintain the continuous operation of the program and to conclude its evaluation.
Learning from the lessons of the last three years, the program will recruit volunteers based on a carefully designed selection process, emphasizing teacher-volunteer compatibility; train the volunteers to familiarize them with an arsenal of pedagogic methods; the volunteers will be supported by a regional coordinator who will be responsible for 40 volunteers. The coordinator will formulate and cultivate relationship with the schools, intermediate teacher-volunteer relationship as well as address the logistics, in order to ensure smooth and effective collaborations. In parallel, the evaluation will be concluded, aiming to reveal if the goal of increasing selection and retention in the five unit majors of mathematics and physics has been achieved, under what circumstances and at what percentage of success.