Leading team:
- Dr. Jason Cooper project coordinator
- Yonah Amir
- Aamer Badarneh
- Menucha Farber
- Dr. Orly Gottlib
- Prof. Boris Koichu
Project team:
- Sarel Aiber
- Esther Gruenhut
Secretariat and Administration:
Maayan Bar NatanBrief
Professional Learning Communities work on the enactment of problem solving in middle school classes, with the goal of increasing both the frequency of this activity and the level of mathematical proficiency that students demonstrate.
This project aims to encourage middle-school teachers to challenge their students with increasingly demanding problem-solving activities at an increasing frequency. To this end we’ve created a collection of challenging mathematical problems – many of which are contextualized in authentic real-life settings (following the OECD’s conceptual framework for the international PISA test) – and have been engaging teachers in professional learning communities (PLCs) around enactment of problems in their classrooms, both from the available collection and from other sources that teachers may choose to draw on. Teachers collaborate in planning classroom enactment of the problems, and reflect together on the activity and on student engagement in preparation for the next enactment. A technologically-supported mechanism for reflecting upon each classroom enactments aims to facilitate systematic and long-term incorporation of problem-solving practices in mathematics teaching. The main success criteria of the project are the frequency and quality of problem-solving activities that are implemented in the classroom. The program is funded by the Trump Foundation (2020-2024).
Former team members
Dr. Ruth Reiz
Michael Gorodin
Magdoleen Hazran
Hajali Moaadii
Omri Nave
Fatmeh Hihi
Further reading:
- PISA 2021 Mathematics Frameworkl
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Cooper, J., & Koichu, B. (2021). In the pursuit of impact: Design and practice of three innovative professional development programs for mathematics teachers. In A. Hofstein, A. Arcavi, & A. Yarden (Eds.), Fifty Years of Curriculum Development, Implementation and Research in the Department of Science Teaching, the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Dordrecht, NL: Sense-Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004503625_015
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Koichu, B., Cooper, J., & Widder, M. (2022). Implementation of Problem Solving in School: From Intended to Experienced, Implementation and Replication Studies in Mathematics Education, 2(1), 76-106. https://doi.org/10.1163/26670127-bja10004
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Cooper, J., & Koichu, B. (2022). Problem-solving implementation chain: From intended to experienced. Pre-conference Proceedings of the Twelfth Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education. Bolzano, Italy.