Study tour to United States

Teacher Residency Training Programs for science and mathematics teachers in Israel are at early stages of development and operation. Since 2013, the foundation has helped seed four such programs at Levinsky, Kibbutzim, Oranim and Beit Berl Colleges. These programs are characterized by a very high acceptance bar and a rigorous selection process, their curriculum is focused on clinical teaching skills for personalized learning, they are conducted off-campus in schools and on the job, with ongoing support from master teachers serving as instructional coaches.

In recent months these programs have created together a professional learning network which allows them to share knowledge, best-practices and challenges, and to learn from one other about ways in which to address them. The network is of importance both to the development of the individual programs, but also in terms of their potential ability to share resources and to collaborate, and eventually to influence the practice of other teacher training frameworks in Israel.

At this stage, the program directors feel that learning from the experience of similar veteran programs abroad could help them improve their programs. In the United States there are a number of teacher residency programs and networks which started almost ten years ago, and their experience is tremendously valuable. Therefore, Beit Berl College is proposing on behalf of the programs, to embark on a 5-day study tour to the United States to visit programs and networks in New York, New Jersey and Boston.

The study visit will include meeting with the Boston Residency Program, New Visions, Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, Teachers College at Columbia University, TNTP Teaching Fellows in New York and the Urban Teacher Residency United network (UTRU). Specific questions the visit is planning to address include:

1. What are appropriate standards for recruiting high quality candidates and how to create effective screening process in a collaborative manner?
2. How to design a clinical teaching curriculum which is focused on student learning and thinking and equip teachers with skills to adapt their teaching to the individual capabilities and difficulties of each student in the classroom?
3. What are the roles and functions of master teachers who serve as instructional coaches (‘Clinical Teacher Educators’), and what are best-practices in aligning their tutoring with the courses and workshops provided by the college?
4. How could the individual programs and the network support the successful placement and integration of their alumni in schools, and how could they assist and monitor the quality of their teaching and their retention as teachers in school?
5. How to build the professional network between the independent programs in a way that would contribute to their success, encourage effective and efficient collaboration and resources sharing, and influence mainstream training programs?

Upon their return the program directors will jointly write a detailed report around these five questions, summing up what they have learned and suggesting preliminary ideas of how to implement modifications and improvements in their programs and their joint collaborative effort. The report will be shared with the professional community and will be available online free of charge.

* The text above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors / Grant 136