Smadar Levy

Research

My work focuses on design-based research on the professional growth of physics teachers and teacher leaders in continuing professional development (PD) frameworks. I head the national network of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) for high school physics teachers (~300 participants), which operates in the form of a "Fan Model", with a PLC of teacher leaders and nationwide regional PLCs. I lead the design of the annual themes for the teacher-leaders' PLC, which are then implemented by the teacher leaders in the 10 regional PLCs. The design includes developing curriculum activities and related PD activities for the PLC meetings as well as supporting the teacher leaders in their unique role as PLC leaders.

My current work focuses on three main lines of research within the PLCs network (in collaboration with Prof. Edit Yerushalmi):

Advancing Students' Agency in Experimental Research Practices
Changing lab instruction and narrowing the gap between desired and prevailing lab norms involves changing teachers' priorities by setting new learning goals and providing a PD to help teachers change their orientations towards these goals. This has been one of the annual themes in the PLCs since 2019. The design consisted of lab and PD activities that centered on Deliberation Labs (DLs). The results highlighted the need for a long, small-step, iterative PD sequence to enable the implementation of instruction that better reflects experimental research practices. The findings were presented to the Professional National Committee of Physics Teaching at the Ministry of Education and informed the reform of the lab matriculation exam that was recently approved.
Digital Activities to Support Learning from Problem Solving
Digital activities can help teachers implement instruction that fosters Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) practices. However, the implementation of digital activities is often hindered by teachers' perceptions of the goals of problem solving and the instructional strategies teachers are used to. The integration of digital activities to promote SRL practices in problem solving has been an annual theme in the PLCs since 2021. We developed three types of digital activities that were implemented in the PeTeL platform, and related PD activities. The research focused on teachers’ perceptions of these digital activities as a learning opportunity.
Supporting Knowledge Organization through Physics Card-Games ("Phys-Cards")
Despite the positive effects of gamification on student motivation and learning outcomes, there are still widespread concerns that "playing games is merely fun" and has no added value, thus making teachers hesitate about incorporating games into their teaching. We developed six Phys-Cards games that have been an annual PLC theme since 2022. Each game is a summative, hands-on activity designed to support students in organizing their knowledge of physics concepts through a “compare and contrast” task on a specific topic. The findings showed that the teachers acknowledged the contribution of the Phys-Cards games to students’ conceptual understanding and knowledge organization. We identified and characterized teachers' dilemmas in implementing the games in their classrooms, e.g. managing students' teamwork. The discussions in the PLCs helped the teachers find productive ways to incorporate these games into their lessons.

Research page

Selected Publications

High school physics teachers' professional noticing in the context of group-oriented learning analytics dashboards

Levy S., Chen E., Langley D., Walter M., Porat G., Nazaretsky T., Alexandron G. & Yerushalmi E. (2026) Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education. 22, 4, em2813.

The evolution of blended instructional environments requires teachers to extend professional noticing to learning analytics data presentations. This research is situated in the context of dashboards generated by a clustering algorithm that analyzed the performance of over 300 high school physics students on a diagnostic questionnaire and clustered them into characteristic performance profiles, which the algorithm then projected on specific student cohorts. Teacher noticing was elicited using semi-structured interviews centered on three dashboards presenting students performance, and teachers were asked to characterize emerging problem-solving knowledge and suggest responses to identified issues. Analysis of interview data from a sample of 10 experienced physics teachers revealed that teacher noticing was sensitive to dashboard features. While teachers tended to focus on individual students during the characterization stage, they preferred to address groups or the whole class at the response stage and focused less on providing individual students with personalized support.

It takes a professional learning community to grow as a physics teacher

Levy S., Eylon B. S., Bagno E. & Yerushalmi E. (2026) Physics Education. 61, 1, 015004.

Teachers professional growth is grounded in a cumulative, reflective process embedded in their day-to-day practice, which often reflects a compromise between competing instructional goals and the constraints teachers face. Carrying out instructional practices that advance their educational goals often requires teachers to implement changes and step out of their comfort zone, a cognitively and emotionally demanding process. Professional development programs that are ongoing, challenging, focused on the subject matter and student learning, and are situated in teachers practice can support these change processes. The goal of the current study was to characterize a sustainable, effective large-scale professional development programa national network of professional learning communities (PLCs) for high school physics teachers. The program has been operating continuously since 2012, and encompasses a population of about a quarter of the total national workforce (N ≈ 275). The program is led by a team of researchers and experienced high school physics teachers from a university-based physics education research group, as a research-practice partnership. This study had two aims. We first describe the key features of the program and articulate its operational model and then characterize the evolving design of disciplinary learning themes within the PLCs. This long-term, longitudinal study employed a design-based research methodology. The results show that the sustainability and effectiveness of the PLCs program as a long-term, large-scale professional development framework for physics teachers is closely tied to its ongoing renewal, as well as to the strength of the research-practice partnership. Overall, the findings illustrate how a learning community can effectively foster the professional growth of teachers and teacher-leaders and suggest that PLC networks can serve as leverage to promote reform initiatives in science education.

Long and winding road toward change in teachers' goals and orientations in the instructional lab

Levy S., Noga A. & Yerushalmi E. (2025) Physical Review Physics Education Research. 21, 1, 010145.

Teachers' goals and orientations underlie their instructional decision making and can make the difference between "talking the talk"and "walking the walk"when trying to change lab instruction. Schoenfeld's Resources, Orientations, and Goals (ROG) framework was employed to shed light on the challenges involved in a reform in lab instruction that aims to grant students more agency in experimental research practices. We focus on high school physics teachers engaged in a professional development process as members of a national network of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs, N≈275 participants). One of the annual themes in the PLCs addressed lab instruction. The teachers were involved in: (a) experiencing, as learners, Deliberation Labs designed to reform lab instruction while taking into consideration the widespread constraints faced by high school teachers; and (b) engaging in collaborative reflection on their classroom experiences to encourage them to rethink their ROGs. The data were gathered from two professional development sequences held during the 2020 and 2022 school years that differed in the structuring of collaborative reflection. To achieve a large-scale portrayal of teachers' goals and orientations toward integrating experimental research practices in the instructional lab, we analyzed surveys administered in the PLCs. The survey results highlighted two main orientations that interfered when implementing the Deliberation Labs: the "lab serving theory"orientation and the "restricting agency"orientation. To better understand the processes of change in teachers' ROGs, we present two case studies that were involved in the structured collaborative reflection on practice. They deal with experienced PLC teacher-leaders who were motivated to try out the Deliberation Labs in their classrooms. The analysis shows how they interpreted their experiences in ways that align with the lab serves theory orientation, thus undermining the goals that the Deliberation Labs were designed to achieve. These results highlight the winding road to change in teachers' ROGs and emphasize the need to support them in resolving conflicting goals and orientations. They also raise dilemmas regarding the nature of feasible yet effective professional development programs that can lead to large-scale change.

Physics card games to support knowledge organization: design considerations and teachers attitudes

Levy S., Perl-Nussbaum D. & Yerushalmi E. (2024) Physics Education. 59, 5, 055010.

Despite the positive effects of gamification on student motivation and learning outcomes, there are still widespread concerns that playing games is merely fun and have no added value, thus making teachers hesitate about incorporating games into their teaching. This paper describes Phys-Cards games, designed as a summative hands-on activity that highlights physics concepts through a contrast and compare task in a game context. The Phys-Cards games were presented in a national network of professional learning communities (PLCs) for high school physics teachers. The teachers first played the games and then reflected on their experiences after they implemented them in their classrooms. Surveys and an analysis of the teachers reflections indicated that they valued the Phys-Cards games and reported that the games contributed to students conceptual understanding and knowledge organization. However, teachers faced challenges such as team size and composition, how to best monitor different groups, and timing in the instructional sequence. In their discussions during the PLC meetings, the teachers identified the features of the games that best promotedmeaningful collaborative learning and suggested productive ways to incorporate the games into their teaching.

All Publications