Simulation Workshops

At the foundation’s initiative, during the last few years 450 high-order applied mathematics tasks were developed for excellence classes and high ability groups in middle school. The implementation of these tasks in classrooms poses multiple challenges for mathematics teachers, as it requires conceptual, pedagogical and organizational changes on the teacher’s part. Many of them find the tasks difficult to integrate into their mathematics lessons.

As a result, we are now trying to find useful ways to assist the teachers in adapting their teaching and in reducing the gap between intention and actual practice in classrooms. One such way is through simulation workshops, which can be a component of professional development. In such workshops, teachers can practice in a monitored environment that enables them to cope with challenges and receive beneficial feedback from their peers and from experts.

To further this endeavor, we approached the National Center for Simulation in Education at Bar-Ilan University which, through past grants from the foundation, successfully operated simulation workshops for mathematics teachers on growth mindsets and for teachers in residency programs. The Center is now proposing a three-year program in which they will develop scripts for thirty simulation workshops based on teaching applied mathematics tasks in middle school excellence classes and to provide support for 400 middle school mathematics teachers.

A development team, consisting of two mathematics-teaching experts and two simulation developers, will observe applied mathematics lessons and conduct interviews with teachers. With their findings, they will prepare seven different simulation scenarios based on challenges faced by mathematics teachers, such as teaching a task from a real-world context in which the teacher is not expert, or teaching the mathematical modeling process, which is new to both teachers and students.

They will then invite teacher leaders and their teachers’ communities to participate in workshops as part of their professional development. The teachers will observe each other engaging with actors in a prepared classroom scenario. The simulated lesson will be filmed on video and serve as a basis for analysis in a group discussion with the community members. The workshops will be held both in Hebrew and Arabic, and will be adapted to the unique needs of the different communities.

The cost of operating the workshops will be covered by the Ministry of Education, which supports the operation of the workshops at the Center.