Online Program Featuring High Order Mathematical Thinking for Arab Middle School Students

Applied mathematical thinking skills are important for the 21^st century and are at the heart of many current educational innovations and reforms around the world, including the OECD attempt to create a global curriculum (the 2030 Project) and the PISA research. However, in Israel’s middle schools, the rate of excellence in these skills is relatively low; only 8.9% of the students reached a level of excellence (5-6 levels) in the 2015 PISA mathematics test, placing Israel in the 33^rd place among the participating countries (the average was 10.5%).

This low level of performance in a test that is perceived as a ‘barometer’ for education systems is a contradiction to the image of Israel as a ‘Startup Nation’ and a cause for public concern. Particular unease comes from Arab schools in Israel, where less than 1% of the students reach levels of excellence. According to a recent research report we commissioned, the gap is rooted in classroom teaching, which prefers procedural fluency and frontal teaching, and in school organization, which is reluctant to employ data driven and student-centered approaches.

The Center for Educational Technology (CET) seeks to help mitigate this hurdle. CET is Israel’s largest research and development education organization, specializing in online teaching, writing textbooks and developing assessments. The foundation collaborated with CET in previous years, most notably in creating the Virtual High School that provides online five-unit courses in mathematics and physics for 1,000 students across the country, including in Arab schools. CET has recently changed its CEO and the current management is eager to focus on promoting excellence in middle schools.

CET is proposing to design an online program, which will feature high and applied mathematics for 8^th-9^th grade Arab students. The program will be offered as a supplemental after-school activity for motivated high achieving students. The content will be based on educational challenges relevant to daily life, whose resolution requires high-level mathematical knowledge and skills.  The teaching and learning will be performed online with excellent teachers, as well as with mentors who are outstanding university students. All the material will be in Arabic and the teachers and mentors, all from the Arabic speaking community, will undergo comprehensive training.

The students will meet virtually with their teacher and mentor on a weekly basis. Between classes, the students will develop and work on solving the challenge with their mentor, and practice with high-level PISA based assignments on the relevant skills. Throughout the year, the program will be in direct contact with the mathematics teachers and principals at the students’ schools, in order to update them on the progress of each student. At the end of each year, CET will organize a special gathering for the students, teachers and mentors.

The goal of the program is to reach within five years 1,500 students in each grade level, representing 6% of the Arabic speaking cohort. Success will be measured in a final test, which will be aligned with the 5-6 levels of PISA. A grant from the foundation is sought to fund the development of materials and assessments, as well as half of the first year operation of pilot testing with 300 students of 9^th grade. CET plans that the Ministry of Education will partner in the program and allocate a 23 million NIS budget for the large scale operation.

* The text presented above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation Board / Grant 336