The Israeli public education system is facing enormous challenges due to implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. Schools are struggling to maintain continuity and mitigate the effects of growing gaps. Hectic transitions between lockdowns, quarantine and learning pods make it almost impossible to give students a quality learning experience. Under these challenging circumstances and reduced class […]
Teaching mathematics in middle school focuses on procedural fluency and technique needed for later stages of learning in high school. In recent years, the Ministry of Education upgraded the curriculum in order to smooth the transition between middle school and high school. This change included elevating the levels of mathematical thinking in middle school and […]
PISA research was launched in 2000, bringing the concepts of reasoning and applying knowledge to real-world contexts to the center stage of education. PISA uses the word “literacy” to encapsulate the nature of this skill. It advocates a shift of focus by education systems from a traditional inward-looking perspective that prefers basic, pure and procedural […]
The summer school aims to close learning gaps that were created during school closures, and help ninth grade graduates prepare towards the five-unit track in mathematics. The program will operate over 10 days, three hours a day, integrating between teaching curricular material and studying applied mathematics. Students will be able to participate in a learning […]
The Federation of Local Authorities in Israel, which is a nonprofit umbrella organization of the municipalities in Israel, is proposing to create an online mathematics summer school. The program will be offered in two cohorts, each over five days, three hours a day, for 2,000 students across the country. The educational content will be developed […]
Physics is rarely taught in Israel’s middle schools. The national curriculum for compulsory science classes comprises a “tasting menu” of science topics, including biology, earth sciences, chemistry, physics and technology, combined. The science teacher is typically trained in biology, and the students come from all ability groups in mathematics. As a result, not only is […]
In 2017, the foundation approved a three-year grant to collaborate with the municipality of Umm al-Fahem in an ambitious attempt to double the rate of its five-unit track graduates in mathematics. Umm al-Fahem is an Arab city in Northern Israel comprising 60,000 residents. In 2017, only 7.2% of the twelfth grade students in the city […]
Teaching and learning takes place in a classroom which is by definition a sterile environment. Classes were intentionally designed in this way, uninterrupted by the outside world in order to allow for an effective educational process. As a result, students sometimes find it difficult to be motivated, to feel a sense of relevance, and they […]
The Education Ministry’s Central District is responsible for 320,000 high school students, who reside in 56 cities and study in 132 schools. In 2018, 21% of its twelfth grade students matriculated in the five-unit track in mathematics. This number signifies impressive progress which was an outcome of a multi-year effort by the District’s leadership, its […]
Within a month since social distancing measures have been imposed in Israel over one million citizens, constituting 25% of the workforce, are currently unemployed. Some of them are graduates of higher education institutions, with academic degrees in science or engineering. The current estimates of economists are that many of the new unemployed academics will struggle […]
In the past few years, an echelon of master teachers has emerged, as part of the five-unit endeavor in high schools. This group of excellent teachers of mathematics and the sciences lead the professional learning communities of teachers, provide instructional coaching to their peers, guide the induction of new teachers and inform the development of […]
The national mathematics curriculum for middle school focuses on procedural fluency and technique. However, in recent years it has begun introducing more applied aspects, such as problem solving and modeling, which require deeper thinking and understanding. Nevertheless, in practice, this new portion of the curriculum is marginalized as it is harder to teach and learn […]
Mathematics is used in a profound manner to understand phenomena in the physical world. It is therefore not surprising that 80% of the high school students in five units in physics, also major the five-unit track in mathematics. In the PISA framework, these two disciplines are often intertwined, as physics is one of the real-life […]
Since the 1990s, Israel relied on a generation of excellent mathematics and science teachers, a large proportion of whom immigrated from the Former Soviet Union. However, with time, they have naturally retired. As a result, a shortage of teachers has grown during the past decade, which was among the significant factors contributing to the decline […]
Middle school students need a solid foundation of mathematical knowledge in order to advance to higher order problems. For example, the PISA test that diagnoses the applied aspects of mathematics, relies on a common global denominator of both knowledge and technique that is shared between 15-year-old students from across the world. However, in Israel, parts […]
Over the last couple of months, a select group of six mathematics master teachers has been convening for a joint learning process. By initiative and with support from the foundation, and academic guidance by the Levinsky College of Education, the group met for three workshops. In these workshops, they jointly analyzed PISA assignments and academic […]
A year ago, the foundation launched its new roadmap for middle schools, aiming to help Israel reach the top 15 excelling countries in mathematics performance. The roadmap requires the development of new learning materials and pedagogic tools, assisting teachers to adapt their practice, opening more excellence classes in middle schools and engaging policy makers and […]
The foundation’s roadmap for middle schools sets the goal for Israel reaching the top 15 excelling countries in mathematics, as measured by the PISA research. One significant milestone in advancing towards this goal is to expand the circle of excellence in middle schools. Specifically, we aim to help raise the rate of students in excellence […]
Israel’s vibrant high-tech sector constitutes a unique opportunity for education in Israel. Not only that dreaming about a future career in high-tech is a motivational driver for students, veteran engineers comprise an exceptional pool of talent for new teachers. When PISA is concerned, the issues that high-tech professionals meet on a daily basis hold a […]
The results of the 2018 PISA assessment revealed that only 8.8 % of Israel’s 15 year old students meet the test’s standards of excellence. Although a much larger rate of students learn in the highest ability group of mathematics in middle school in Israel, the curriculum and teaching are typically geared towards procedural fluency and […]
The PISA mathematics framework emphasizes the way students apply their mathematical knowledge in real life contexts. It requires conceptual thinking skills that allow knowledge transfer from familiar to unfamiliar circumstances, inducing meaningful conclusions from raw data, and the ability to solve a complex problem by using a mathematical model. Teaching these notions is not the […]
The city of Beit Shemesh, located in the outskirts of Jerusalem, has approximately 130,000 residents and is home to a very diverse population. A growing ultra-orthodox Jewish community comprises 65% of the residents and half of the population is under 18 years old. The education system in the city includes 43 middle and high schools, […]
The results of the 2018 PISA international research of education systems were released in December 2019. These troubling results for Israel led to a public outcry in the media. Israel declined in its average mathematics score, the gaps are wide and excellence levels decreased from 9.2% in 2015 to 8.8% in 2018. These results are […]
The city of Netanya has a population of about 250,000 residents, of which 75,000 are new-immigrants. The city’s 19 middle and high schools include state, state-religious, ultra-orthodox and special education schools. The social mosaic in the city leads to differences in the socio-economic status and academic performance between neighborhoods and schools. In the city today […]
When schools closed at a moment’s notice three weeks ago, teachers and students were expected to immediately make a transition from the physical classroom to online learning. Not without difficulties, many teachers rose to the occasion and are now using available platforms and tools. The Ministry of Education, school networks, education organizations and municipalities are […]
There is a handful of middle school mathematics teachers in Israel and abroad that already developed learning assignments using the context of the Corona pandemic. They created growth scenarios by devising formulas that take into consideration multiple variables, calculated effective social distancing measures according to known characteristics of the virus, and used algorithms to mine […]
Mathematics teachers who are now teaching online, report that they notice a growing gap between the synchronous lessons and the homework assignments. In the plenary classroom lesson, the microphones of the students are typically muted, while the teacher lectures by talking and demonstrating on a shared screen. From time to time, the teacher allows for […]
In an internet-based questionnaire we conducted last week among 147 mathematics teachers, the majority raised their need to join professional learning communities of teachers who are now also teaching online. They said they are overwhelmed with marketing proposals to use a variety of online learning material and technological platforms of diverse quality. They indicated that […]
The program will be based on the international Kangaroo initiative in mathematics, which offers competitions in mathematics for students around the world. The proposed program includes 30 mathematical riddles aligned with the 3-6 levels of PISA. The riddles will be presented over two weeks as a competition that will be introduced in two rounds and […]
The program includes the preparation of two daily online events over four weeks, comprised of mathematical riddles, aligned with the PISA mathematics framework. Topics will include proportions and statistics, relying on a refresher course that is currently in development by the Center. In each live event, riddles will be presented, on gradual levels of difficulty. […]