The University of Haifa will train 30 teacher leaders who will be selected by local authorities in order to establish municipal communities of practice
“Five Club” was established in 2015 by the University of Haifa (assisted by a grant from the Trump Foundation) in order to create and operate professional learning communities (PLCs) for 5-unit mathematics teachers across the country. In these communities, the teachers work systematically in order to improve their teaching practices by analyzing their students’ learning, progress and difficulties. Each PLC is coached by two teacher leaders, who were especially trained. In 2017 “Five Club” had a cadre of 30 leaders who coached 15 communities that included 300 teachers. A couple of years ago the Ministry of Education embraced the program and started funding its ongoing operations.
The program is perceived highly successful, and the appetite for it is growing. The demand is particularly high in cities that defined ambitious goals for their performance in the five-unit track and their municipality embarked on designated programs to achieve these goals. In many of our partnerships with such municipalities, they wish to create city-based PLCs for their five unit teachers. However, the “Five Club” program is by now fully stretched and is unable to scale up its operation because it has a limited number of well-trained teacher leaders.
Following the need raised by the municipalities, “Five Club” approached the foundation with the request to help them train additional 30 teacher leaders. These teachers will be chosen by municipalities that wish to create city-based PLCs and are committed to providing the required resources for their operations, whether from the municipal budget or through the funding of the Ministry of Education. In the training, participants will learn how to use clinical teaching tools based on evidence from their own classrooms, as well how to lead a community of teachers. In a second stage they will launch city-based communities while receiving ongoing coaching and support.