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Thinking Science

This program is designed to foster scientific thinking and research skills, while developing digital scientific literacy among students and teachers in junior high schools throughout the country.

Program Description

A. Development of teaching units

B. Teacher training

During the 2017-2018 school year, the program was implemented in the framework of the "Thinking Science" experiment in 30 schools in cooperation with the Supervision of Science and Technology Teaching Department in the Ministry of Education, the Israel Center for Excellence in Education, and World ORT Kadima Mada to demonstrate a program that emphasizes the integration of learning skills in the laboratory.

During the 2018-19 school year, the program is operating in World ORT Kadima Mada educational network schools, comprised of carefully designed teacher training, guidance and integration.

Throughout the course, the teachers gain experience through development of teaching units that are later implemented with the students in the class. Implementing this program will help nurture future scientists, and more importantly, citizens with scientific and technological literacy in addition to values ​​such as curiosity, aspiration for excellence, determination, perseverance, accuracy, reliability, problem solving and teamwork.

As part of the pilot year, the program was accompanied by both an external and internal evaluation, in order to assess the overall program and the specific content in order to achieve optimal outcomes. The optimization and further development of the units (in 2018-19) is being carried out by World ORT Kadima Mada.

Goals

1.   Recognize and understand a variety of strategies and tools for experiential learning while developing scientific and creative thinking;

2.   Strategically understand the need for explicit teaching of 21st century skills, in accordance with the skills required by the PISA tests;

3.   Develop digital literacy for the construction and application of thinking skills, using appropriate tools; and

4.   Develop a culture of a professional learning community that focuses on learning processes and teaching practices.