The Mofet Institute will study the needs and standards of programs for teacher communities, interview master teachers, and work the Ministry of Education to prepare recommendations for a new policy
Professional learning communities of teachers are at the heart of the foundation’s strategy. In such communities, teachers jointly develop clinical teaching techniques and engage in an ongoing improvement of their practice.
Over the past five years, the foundation has invested approximately 20 million NIS in a number of programs, enabling hundreds of mathematics and science teachers to participate in such communities on a routine basis.
In secondary school, most of these communities operate outside the school campus, convening a group of teachers from different schools. They are led by one or two master teachers (sometimes called teacher leaders) and guided by an academic or professional institution. The response from the participating teachers is remarkable and there is a growing appetite to sustain, scale up and even expand them to middle schools.
Funding for these communities is however still fragile. The academic institution is funded via a philanthropic grant, which is, by nature, temporary and will not provide ongoing support as continuously needed. Since there is no formal role in the education system for the master teachers, who lead the communities, they are modestly compensated by the Ministry as ‘guides’. In the first few years they also received some additional one-time pay for a development role from the academic institution, however this source is ultimately dwindling.
In order to address these challenges, the foundation, in collaboration with Yad Hanadiv (Rothschild Foundation) and the Ministry of Education, commissioned the Israel National Academy of Science, to advise on a policy. As a result, the Ministry and Yad Hanadiv embarked on a joint venture which focuses on creating school-based communities of teachers, mostly in elementary schools and practically not focusing on mathematics and science education. They did so because the Ministry is now promoting a policy that favors in-school professional development, as part of its wage agreements with the Teachers Unions.
In parallel over the past year the Ministry, the Trump Foundation and providers of mathematics and science communities, have engaged in an intense series of discussions. In these talks, it became clear that the Ministry recognizes the importance and effect of the off-campus communities, and that it is determined to look for ways to support them for the long term. To do so, in collaboration with the foundation, the parties turned to the Mofet Institution to recommend necessary steps and to act as a convener for their implementation.
Mofet is a not for profit organization which specializes in training teacher educators. It is the professional home of the teacher colleges in Israel and serves as a center of expertise in teacher training. In recent years it also acts as an R&D hub for professional development and knowledge sharing between teacher educators, and is the incubator for the school-based communities of teachers. Mofet is suggesting a one-year process, in which it will:
The process will be led by a project manager and an academic advisor, and will be guided by a steering committee with representation from the Ministry, academia, master teachers and the foundation. It will include convening the current programs, studying their needs and standards, interviewing the master teachers, and working with relevant departments at the Ministry to prepare the required policy. The goal is to conclude an interim set of recommendations within six months, and to embark on first steps of implementing them immediately after their approval.
* The text above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors / Grant 221