The Weizmann Institute will expand the use of the Moodle System for Personalized Teaching and Learning (PeTel) for physics teachers
In recent years, physics classes have become larger and more diverse, and the failure rate from these classes increased to more than 20%. The foundation prepared for this moment by nurturing the development of diagnostic assignments, helping teachers identify learning difficulties of individual students in real time and respond immediately. Two grants to the Weizmann Institute (for a total of 3.7 million NIS) focused on developing special diagnostic tasks for physics teachers and teaching aids. The implementation planned to reach a total of 230 teachers by collaborating with the teacher communities, publishing diagnostic tasks on a website and distributing them via a learning management system (LMS).
In practice, over 200 teachers have been using the tasks in their classrooms so far, most of them experimented with the tasks only several times. Although many of them generated an appetite for the diagnostic approach, many others claimed that it is time consuming and requires a sharp shift in the way they are used to teach.
To address this challenge and to smooth the implementation, the Weizmann Institute developed a designated Moodle-based environment (PeTeL), where all the diagnostic tasks are stored. Students perform them via a pc or smartphone, then the system collects, records, and analyzes their performance and provides the teacher with feedback and recommendations. The system also allows teachers to share materials and student work with each other and to use it as a basis for discussion in the teachers learning communities.
Weizmann pilot tested the platform with 20 early adopters, and their feedback indicates that it holds a potential for profounder use. Therefore, they are now planning to expand implementation to 300 physics teachers. They will train 15 teacher leaders to hold special workshops where 300 teachers will learn the technical and pedagogical aspects of using the platform effectively. 150 of the 300 teachers will then receive individual instruction to help them in the ongoing usage of the system.