Harris

Encouraging girls to excel in STEM

 STEM, Vocational Training  1 Response »
Jan 092013
 

This post is contributed by Nechama Kenig, Pedagogical Coordinator, World ORT Kadima Mada, Israel. This piece first appeared on eJewish Philanthropy on 9 January 2013.

Science and technology are fundamental factors in the growth and development of every society. And, as Elizabeth Marincola, President of the Washington DC-based Society for Science and the Public, put it recently, strong STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education is vital to students’ success in an increasingly technological and global economy. It is a critical building block for exploration, innovation, and the economy, and the catalyst to attack problems affecting the world… and it is a catalyst for jobs.

So, it should go without saying that the under-representation of women in STEM fields is a potentially massive loss economically – as well as a black mark against those societies which fail to nurture girls’ abilities.

In general, Israeli women are grossly underrepresented in the higher echelons of industry and business: only five per cent of CEOs, 15 percent of company directors and 18 percent of executives are female, according to Catalyst, an NGO dedicated to creating more inclusive workplaces.

Likewise, the more technological the occupation, the fewer women are working in it: only eight percent of hardware engineers are women, for example, in a country where 49 percent of the overall workforce is female.

About 55 percent of PhD graduates are women, most of them in Education and Humanities, but only 12 percent in Engineering and 25 percent in Science. Meanwhile, 48 percent of lecturers are women but only 19 percent of
professors are – and that figure shrinks to 15 per cent in STEM subjects.

Israel is not the only country with a problem: new research funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council shows that girls in particular are put off science careers because it is ‘geeky’ and male dominated. This may explain the findings of an earlier study, by the Institute of Physics, which revealed that nearly half of England’s state schools did not have any girls studying physics at an advanced level.

In the former Soviet Union and Argentina, World ORT-affiliated educators have been working to overcome the cultural influences which inhibit girls from pursuing science and technology.

However, while some of the factors behind the under-representation of women in STEM appear to be common to many countries, there are some aspects which are unique to the Jewish State.

Israel is a country of stark contrasts – a liberal democratic secular state with an enviably innovative, high-tech industrial sector second only to the United States, many of its citizens have an overarching commitment to ethnic and religious identities and beliefs which can be as conservative as they are enriching.

Motherhood and family are still key social values in Israeli society and, as in other countries, it is usually the women whose careers falter as they become the primary care-givers. In addition, the traditional expectations placed on women in various Israeli communities mean that girls can be deterred from pursuing an education in the first place.

Uprooting a family to pursue post-doctoral research abroad would be a challenge for any family but in Israel, where overseas post-doc is particularly favored, the difficulties can be greatly intensified.

As the British research quoted above shows, girls can be put off science careers by the prospect of being part of a minority in a male-dominated sphere. That feeling is compounded for Arab women who are already part of a minority within Israeli society.

The quintessential Israeli factor is the IDF – most of us cannot think of Israel without an image of a friend, relative or anonymous twinkle-eyed hero shouldering unbelievable responsibilities for their tender age. But it is much more than a “people’s army” – it is arguably the country’s single most influential shaper of social values and economic prospects. Indeed, many a high-tech career effectively started during service in an elite IDF unit. But, until Alice Miller’s landmark petition to the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993 (see page 10 of this document), such units were a no-go zone for women. And while gender equality has improved in the years since, women are still underrepresented among their rank.

The education system could – and should – be part of the solution. So far, however, it has been part of the problem.

In the classroom, boys tend to receive more of their teachers’ time than girls, according to research by Anat Zohar, associate professor at the school of education of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Not only that, they receive
more elaborate answers.

There is every reason to suspect that, in Math, teachers unconsciously transfer fear of the subject and undermine girls’ performance, as described in research by Sian Beilock, professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Chicago. Indeed, girls tend to internalize failure, blaming what they perceive to be their poor abilities, while boys tend to blame a test as unfair if they score poorly. Just the existence of tired stereotypes which portray STEM subjects as “not girly” create a vicious cycle in which female students’ anxiety undermines their performance.

However, that is not to say that gender does not play a role in the classroom – boys and girls do, for example, have different learning styles. Researchers in Israel found that the 3:1 ratio of boys to girls in a physics class could be put down to two major factors: an over-competitive learning environment and the algorithmic teaching method, both of which favor boys’ learning style.

There is hope, however. Israel has developed many programs over the years, both governmental and non-governmental, which work towards the advancement of women in science and technology, and encourage the education of girls in these fields.

Mind the Gap was established by a group of female engineers from Google Israel in collaboration with the Israeli National Center of Computer Science Teachers. Groups of female high school students are brought into the Google office each month and told about computer science and its applications; they also meet female engineers in informal environment and experience their working environment. After these visits, 40 percent of the girls choose to study computer science.

The Technion, meanwhile, has Electricity in the Palm of Her Hands, in which girls listen to lectures, watch demonstrations, visit laboratories, and meet with female graduate and undergraduate students; they experience the interdisciplinary, multifaceted nature of electrical engineering and the variety of topics it encompasses.

World ORT, as part of its general mission to raise the attractiveness, availability and quality of science and technology teaching in Israel’s peripheral communities, has introduced girls and boys to the joys of robotics and computer programming through its Mabat program. And the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem has TWIST (Towards Women in Science and Technology), an after-school program featuring Twisty the virtual puppet, inspired by the comments of the many science professionals who say that it was an informal experience that piqued their interest in science and fueled their decision to pursue a science career.

But it is teachers who can have the biggest impact simply in the way they handle the mundane task of class. They can encourage their female students by teaching them that academic abilities are expandable and improvable, by adjusting the learning environment to meet their, as well as boys’, needs; to distance girls from negative stereotypes; and to expose them to female role models.

The changes have to be on the social level by increasing the awareness of the under-representation of women in science, encouraging and supporting mothers in the workforce and in academics, and judging women by the quality of their work and not by the number of hours they spend in the office. We have to help men and women to identify their passion in life.

Preparing a new generation of community leaders

 Leadership, Projects  No Responses »
Aug 302012
 

Sendy and Ronit organized their community’s first “Mitzvah Day”. Sara has set up a Jewish film club, whilst Vera has started a children’s dance ensemble.  Dina has set up a new youth club. Anezka and Karolina have edited their local community magazine. All have made a positive contribution to their Jewish communities – in Istanbul, Warsaw, Mogilev, Barcelona and Prague, to name but a few.

What these young people have in common is that they are graduates of World ORT’s Future Leaders Program – an intensive nine-month leadership scheme for 16-18 year olds, designed to develop a new generation of Jewish community leaders across Europe and the former Soviet Union. The second cycle of the Future Leaders Program is now open for applications until 28th September 2012.

The program provides participants with a set of tools and experiences which equip them to support Jewish activities and develop new initiatives back in their home communities.

Continue reading »

“Chibur” – connected learning

 Educational Technology, Jewish Education, Projects  No Responses »
Aug 062012
 

Anastasia from Samara wrote about a tiny Torah scroll and a painted Pesach Haggada – her family’s heirlooms passed down through the generations.  Students in Bishkek researched the life of Boris M. Shapiro – a key contributor to the revival of Jewish culture in Kyrgyzstan. Sara from Chernivtsi created a family tree. Students in Odessa found out about their community’s historical synagogues and Jewish hospital. Elena from Dnipropetrovsk recorded recipes passed down in her family from her great grandmother Nechama.

These are all outcomes from the first year of “Chibur” – a World ORT educational project motivating young Jews in countries of the former Soviet Union, Baltic States and Eastern Europe to take an active interest in collecting and documenting their local and family histories.  Students have created highly informative individual and group blogs – which you can browse at chibur.ort.org – to record and share the stories of their Jewish communities and ancestry. Over 200 students from 13 schools – both ORT and non-ORT – were involved, with the best blogs winning prizes. In addition, 140 teachers from across the region attended training seminars designed to familiarize them with using historical research and blogging tools in their teaching.

What are the educational aims of Chibur? We want students to develop a sense of excitement about the revival of Jewish life in their countries. We want them to appreciate the importance of preserving their heritage. We want them to develop important “21st century skills”: using technology; conducting independent research; curating material; presenting findings in clear and attractive ways. And we want teachers to feel increasingly confident to support their students in all of the above.

Our plans for the second year involve extending the project to include Latvia and Czech Republic, as well as any other countries who are interested.

Caine’s Arcade – a powerful combination of social media and technology

 Educational Technology, Pedagogy  No Responses »
Jul 102012
 

In this post, Aviva Landie – a teacher at CIM-ORT Mexico – talks about a Facebook page, a viral video and a subsequent innovative project she carried out with her 2nd and 3rd grade technology students.

“I wanted to do something different and exciting to end the school year. After I came across a Facebook page on “Caine’s Arcade”, I knew exactly what I would propose to my 2nd and 3rd grade technology students.  After I showed them a short 10-minute video clip on “Caine’s Arcade”, they didn’t even let me propose the idea before all of my students with huge excitement asked, “Can we build our own arcade?” I was so happy to see so much enthusiasm. I told them that we would answer a few questions about the video, and then as a class decide exactly what we wanted to do with this project.

They accessed the classroom blog where I had posted a few questions about the video and we answered the questions together as a class. The one question they had difficulty answering was the question about the flash mob. They had difficulties understanding how so many people showed up to surprise Caine in the video, so we discussed what a flash mob is and how anyone with an account can create an event on a social media site like Facebook and invite people from all over the world (similar to how the flash mob was created in “Caine’s Arcade”). I also showed them a few videos of different flash mobs that have been uploaded to YouTube in order for them to see the different kinds of flash mobs that have taken place around the world.

Already knowing the answer to my question, I asked if they would be interested in building their own arcade, and without much surprise the – entire – class actually agreed on the same thing for the first this school year. I asked them to break up into small groups and draw a “design” with a list of materials that they would need to build their arcade. They worked on their design during two different class periods as they began bringing in all the materials. Once they had a well thought-out design, they were allowed to start building their arcade. Groups started creating, taping, painting, and enjoying every minute they put into building their arcade. Students actually asked if they could take their arcade home in order to be able to get together with their groups and work over the weekend! It was truly incredible to see my students so engaged, enthusiastic, and committed to their work.

There are so many pedagogical benefits from this project. My students watched the video on YouTube, accessed the classroom blog, learned about glash mobs, worked collaboratively in groups, and most importantly they were learning by doing. They used critical thinking in determining how they were going to take what they had sketched out in their designs and apply it to the building process of their arcade. Lots of critical thinking and problem solving skills were used in determining how they could make their arcade less challenging or in some cases more challenging in order to attract more people to play. There was a lot of collaboration throughout the entire process. One specific example of this was when they had to decide and assign as a team who would bring what in terms of materials.

I was so happy with such positive results that I joined the group “Caine’s Arcade” on Facebook and posted a few pictures that I took of my students while they were working on their arcade. One day after posting the pictures, one of the pictures I had posted had 260 likes. A few days later, a news reporter from NBC Los Angeles contacted me and asked for permission to use the pictures I had posted in her news report about Caine’s Arcade.

It’s truly incredible how social media and technology connects the world in so many different ways. Caine’s Arcade provided my students the opportunity to create, collaborate, think critically, use technology, and with the opportunity to learn a few things about entrepreneurship. And everything was made possible as a result of the passion and dedication of Caine Monroy, a nine-year old boy from Los Angeles, CA.”

Students Need Time Offline

 Educational Technology, Leadership, Pedagogy  2 Responses »
Jul 042012
 

This post is contributed by Marcelo Lewkow, National Director of ORT Chile.

It often seems as if everyone in the education world today is racing to keep up-to-date with the latest technological developments and to integrate the latest technical gadgets into their teaching. The benefits of using technology to engage students in the classroom are well-rehearsed, and I have no wish to dispute them. Nevertheless, I have been involved in a project which prevents school students from using technological devices in school.  Let me give the background and explain the rationale…

Maimonides School in Santiago, Chile, is an orthodox Jewish school which achieves consistently high academic results. The school makes frequent use of technology where it enhances the teaching and learning environment – both inside of the classroom and for homework/extension tasks. We certainly have all the technological equipment that we need. However, we have decided to ban students completely from using their own communication devices – smart phones, tablets, or anything else – inside school. Of course, much of the received wisdom nowadays is that making use of students’ own devices for positive educational purposes in the classroom will involve them more in their studies.  So why are we going against the grain?

This generation of school students is permanently “connected” – via instant messaging, via Facebook, via music sharing sites and via many other platforms. Absorption in this online world can often come at the expense of developing meaningful face-to-face relationships – for children especially. At Maimonides, we think that schools can offer one of the last places for addressing this and for reducing the “noise” which comes from being constantly connected. We want students to relate to their teachers and peers on a person-to-person level, not always interrupted by technological distractions.

As a by-product, this decision has helped us also to reduce the amount of contact between students and their parents during the school day. Students would sometimes worry or mislead their parents by contacting them immediately after any minor incident that happened at school. This would also result in teachers feeling undermined, if parents knew better than them what had been going on at school. The distance at school between students and their parents is a healthy space for growth, and should remain this way. Our policy has helped to maintain this space.

Much educational research points to the fact that education is an inherently social activity. If there is no real interaction, there is no real learning. Online interaction is great, but it cannot be the only kind of interaction. That is why we are going back to basics at Maimonides and refocusing the way that our students communicate – between themselves, with staff and with their parents.

“The Education Spring” – a presentation by Dr. Jorge Grunberg

 Educational Technology, Pedagogy  No Responses »
Jun 292012
 

“We have reached a point at which educational systems must and might finally undergo fundamental change.”

Taking this view as the starting-point for his presentation, Dr. Jorge Grunberg traces the evolution of classroom technology and charts the current social forces which are shaping fundamental change in education settings worldwide. Using the concept of “disruptive innovation”, he analyzes the potential of various new technologies to stimulate new teaching paradigms.

Dr. Jorge Grunberg is the Rector of Universidad ORT Uruguay in Montevideo.

“The Education Spring” – Dr. Jorge Grunberg

View more PowerPoint from HarrisLorie

Challenges & Opportunities in Higher Education: an interview with Dr. Ephraim Buhks, Director of ORT US Operations

 Vocational Training  6 Responses »
Jun 252012
 

Dr Ephraim Buhks is the Director of ORT United States Operations.  In this interview post, he outlines his thoughts on:

  • the changing landscape of higher education in the USA
  • the challenges that this presents
  • how ORT colleges, both in the USA and worldwide, are well positioned to respond to these challenges

Could you provide some background to the current state of higher education in the USA?

There are approximately 6,700 higher education institutions in the USA. These institutions enjoy a significant amount of teaching flexibility, because they are not subject to any national education standards. However, if institutions wish their students to be able to receive government-sponsored financial aid, they must have accreditation – which is awarded by non-governmental agencies. Gaining accreditation is a very tough process: it can take 5 years for an institution to satisfy the 12 or so standards that are laid out. These standards include school management, instructor credentials, curriculum development and facilities. This accreditation system creates a hugely competitive environment and forces institutions to specialize by targeting specific student populations.

Annual tuition costs are high – $25,000 on average.  If you factor in accommodation, textbooks and laptops, costs are pushing $50,000. Clearly, families face great difficulties in finding this money. Many students work alongside their study. Parents and students take out large loans, which can amount to $0.5 million if you count graduate school. So student debt is very high, whilst at the same time, educational and employment outcomes are not very high. Only half of students taking a bachelor degree complete it within six years (the normal duration should be four years). The graduation rate at the largest state universities is even lower – around one third. And even if students do successfully graduate, they are finding it more and more difficult to find jobs. The unemployment rate for recently graduated students is close to 50%. Those who do secure employment will get paid at one third of what they could have expected five years ago.

Why are students graduating from US universities today finding it so difficult to find jobs?

There are three main reasons to account for this.  The first is the recession – economies worldwide are not generating a sufficient number of job openings. The second is globalization – the increasingly global competition for jobs in the USA means that even entry-level graduate positions are attracting well-trained professionals with practical work experience.  US graduates are doubly disadvantaged because they are receiving the wrong kind of education to make them employable – and this is the third reason.

Traditionally, the US model of higher education is based on a European liberal arts education. Students can actually spend more than half of their course studying subject areas unrelated to their major subject. The argument is that this system creates well-rounded individuals with well-developed critical thinking skills. It certainly employs a large number of History, English and Philosophy professors who encourage their students to discover themselves and follow their dreams. The problem with this is that there is no focus on job skills. Moreover, vocational training was practically eliminated from all college curricula, in favour of giving equal opportunities to all students in pursuing a liberal arts education. In the past, successful US companies would hire liberal arts graduates and put them on corporate training schemes for sales, marketing and banking positions. Not today – they cannot afford to, and anyway they have access to a globalized labour market.

So this is the major political, economic and social issue which we will face for many years to come: the role of higher education in skills training, job creation and maintaining the US as a competitive player in the global economy.

What other trends are emerging in higher education in the USA?

  1. Study abroad has become a major development. US colleges and universities have rushed to sign course exchange agreements with institutions overseas. Students now frequently spend a semester or a whole year studying abroad – based on the notion that a global economy puts international study and work experience at a premium. In addition, major US universities have opened campuses overseas – for example New York University in Bahrain. However, these expansions have not always been economically successful, given that the universities in question must compete with the low tuition costs of state-subsidized national institutions already set up in the country.
  2. Distance and online learning has become a mainstream way of teaching, often as part of a blended curriculum combining regular and online classes. Whilst this is undoubtedly the direction which education is taking, there are a number of questions about the quality of distance learning which universities have been providing and the large profits that they have been making.

How are ORT US Operations’ colleges succeeding in this environment?

ORT US Operations has colleges in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. We offer affordable two-year college degree and certificate programs, with skills training and job placement assistance. The average job placement rate is 85%.   Places at our colleges are in demand – our enrolment has doubled over the last three years.

Our program expansion is focused on service industries with well-paid entry level jobs. We have targeted the areas of healthcare, renewable energy, computer game design and the paralegal profession.

It looks like our approach is in line with the thinking of President Obama and his administration. Despite a number of inevitable funding cuts affecting the higher education sector, the President has announced an initiative to increase the proportion of the adult population who go on to higher education from a third to half. Significantly, the most important role will be assigned to community colleges offering two-year programs, in particular skills training programs.

Given the backdrop to education in the USA which you have sketched out for us, what are the opportunities for World ORT and national ORT organizations?

World ORT has something that most large colleges and universities can only dream about: an international presence. In today’s world, global education is at a premium. Study abroad, international student programs (see, for example, the English and Science Summer School) and foreign language courses combined with on-line teaching elements could all be added or incorporated into ORT national programs. ORT US Ops would welcome ORT students from many countries to study at ORT colleges in the US.

It is gratifying to note that the ORT model of skills-based and vocational training – developed more than a century ago – is still in high demand today. World ORT should build its future programs on this model. Its expertise in high-level technologies is already being, and will increasingly be, sought out by multinational companies. The new industrial world – countries like China and India – could become the next area to focus our energies on.

I would be delighted to answer questions from any blog readers, and would certainly love to work towards developing cooperative programs with World ORT and ORT national organizations.

Interview with Lydia Abel & Debbie Staniland, ORT CAPE South Africa

 Educational Technology, Pedagogy, Projects  No Responses »
Jun 122012
 

Next stop: South Africa. I caught up with Lydia Abel – Director – and Debbie Staniland – Development Manager – from ORT SA CAPE. ORT SA CAPE is a part of ORT South Africa, and works with young people and educators from disadvantaged communities in the Cape Town region.

What are the distinctive educational challenges that you face in the Cape Town region?

Young people living here come from a very low educational base. Most children come from very poor homes, where they receive very little educational input. Parents themselves are often illiterate. Given that many parents often have to work very long hours, perhaps away from home, a number of young people are raised by their grandparents – who are likely to be even less educated.

Linked to the first challenge is the issue of language.  The everyday language spoken in the region is a colloquial mixture of local dialects.  This offers little opportunity for young people to develop proper language skills. If their ability to speak in their mother tongue is limited, it is extremely difficult for students to acquire the skills necessary for learning English as a second language. They will only hear English spoken in the couple of lessons they have at school in the morning. Even then, many of the teachers themselves are not proficient English speakers.

The size of classes is very problematic. There are never less than 40 children in a class, often more than 50. Schools are often stretched beyond capacity because they are loathe to turn away local children who would otherwise have to travel large distances to another school. In addition, there is no money available to government sponsored schools for employing teaching assistants. As a result, one teacher is left responsible for controlling a classroom of 50 energetic young people – not an environment conducive to serious learning. Another difficulty within the school system itself is that children can only spend one extra year in any phase (collection of year groups) of the school. This means that they are moved up beyond their capabilities, resulting in real problems when they get older and yet still lack basic literacy and numeracy skills.

A further challenge is that the regional authorities do not like outside organizations coming in to support teachers in the classroom – for example, to provide expert advice or to teach model lessons. This is because a new and very structured curriculum has been implemented across the region, with little room for outside input. This is a shame because the huge pressures on the schooling system necessitate teachers going beyond conventional pedagogical methods and thinking outside of the box. A little bit of outside help might just prove to very helpful.

Given these numerous challenges, where do you start? What areas of work has ORT Cape been focusing on?

One of our most important projects is running educational after-school clubs. Life at home, and the educational opportunities – or lack of educational opportunities – which children have at home, make a huge difference to their educational attainment. Children who go home from school in the afternoon to nothing are massively disadvantaged.

In response to this need, we offer constructive educational programs which take a community-wide approach. Reading and maths support programs are staffed by retired teachers and university students, who will be able to continue this work after our involvement finishes. It is crucial that we aim to make our programs sustainable in the long-term. We also encourage mothers to join their children at these clubs. Owing to high unemployment and seasonal work in the rural areas we work in, mothers are often at home with little to gainfully occupy them. By coming to these clubs, they can improve their own literacy and numeracy skills, as well as building confidence to offer more learning opportunities to their children in their own homes.

Of course, in addition to the young people and their families, we must work on upskilling teachers as well. To that end, we provide training in English and maths teaching. In order to have the biggest impact possible, we our concentrating our efforts on reception class teachers – who can positively influence students at the earliest stage of their school careers. In terms of raw numbers, we have over a period of 5 years delivered accredited training to over 300 teachers. We have also set up professional support networks for teachers.

A lot of your educational programs make use of robotics. Why is this?

Kids find robotics fun! They get excited about making things and using computers. Practical, hands-on activity stimulates young people, particularly teenage boys who are traditionally very difficult to engage.

Drawing on engineering, electronics, and bio-engineering, robotics teaches young people how to think and solve problems. They have to plan, design, make, assess and improve on their designs. They also write up and present what they have done. Therefore they are using and developing a whole range of cognitive processing skills.

We make sure that the activities in our robotics workshops and clubs link to concepts in maths and science, like vectors or acceleration, which are difficult to illustrate in poorly-equipped school laboratories. Using robotics is not only cost-effective but also encourages active learning.

The final important point about this is that we run our robotics workshops and clubs on a socially inclusive model. The programs are funded so as to be self-sustaining. As a result, for every child who pays, we are able to sponsor a child who cannot pay.  We provide lunches – including both kosher and halal food – to ensure that everyone gets the same whilst they are with us. Given that robotics activities require teamwork and cooperation, we have found this to be an excellent way of encouraging young people from different racial, religious and financial backgrounds to not only mix and get to know each other, but also to really work together for a constructive purpose.

Interview with Marina Moiseeva, ORT Moscow Technology School, Gymnasium # 1540

 Leadership, Pedagogy  No Responses »
Jun 012012
 

Marina Moiseeva is the Principal of ORT Moscow Technology School, Gymnasium # 1540. My recent conversation with her focused on two topics:

  • How the school strikes the right balance between a busy state-regulated curriculum and the demands of ORT’s Jewish & technological education.
  • How the school has successfully integrated into mainstream lessons students with special educational needs.

Striking the right balance between a busy state-regulated curriculum and the demands of ORT’s Jewish & technological education

Our school was established in 1994, with the status of a state-funded school. This means that 95% of our budget comes from national and municipal budgets, and only 5% is collected through fundraising (including the efforts of World ORT) and parents’ donations.

Like any other state-funded school, we are obliged to work through a fixed curriculum of compulsory school subjects, developed and approved by the Ministry of Education & Science of the Russian Federation, together with the Moscow Department of Education. This leaves us with only 5 hours per week per student for additional specialist subjects, such as – in our case – computer science and Jewish history & traditions. Some Hebrew teaching can be incorporated as language teaching in the state curriculum, but this still has to be topped up. In practice, our technology and computer science specialism requires 4 hours per week, our Jewish specialism requires a minimum of 5 hours per week alone.

Although these specialist subjects are considered to be very important by the school and by students’ families, none of the subjects are included in the final school exams used as entrance criteria by universities. The formal education system only regards them as “supplementary”. In addition, there are no officially certified teaching programs for these subjects. As a result, inspectors always ask lots of questions about the teaching of these subjects when they visit the school.

It is a real challenge for us to strike the right balance. Our students’ parents expect the school to guarantee good results and a smooth passage to university. At the same time, they specifically chose a Jewish school because they wanted their children to be educated in a Jewish environment.

From a practical perspective, there are simply not enough hours in the school week to fit everything in. Other gymnasiums and lyceums in Moscow actually open on a Saturday and work a 6-day week to fit everything in and to spread the weekly workload more evenly. However, as a Jewish school we would not open on a Saturday. As a consequence, we have to make the school days longer, which is officially not allowed and puts us at risk of being punished! The funny thing is that we have never been punished. Our set-up is something of an open secret.  I think that the city educational authorities know about our specific curriculum and additional subjects, but since they have no clear understanding of what to do with a Jewish school and what the borders of our religious freedoms should be, they just pretend not to see us.

Integrating into mainstream lessons students with special educational needs

We are in the 8th year of our Integration Project, supported by the Jewish Agency and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, involving several Jewish schools in Moscow. We have learnt a lot and received guidance from outstanding professionals in the USA and Israel. We now have a clear and well-developed system in place to cover enrolment, socialization, learning and teacher training.

Our school specializes in integrating students with Autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Typically, we enrol no more than 3 or 4 students with special needs in a class of 25. However, this number can increase owing to the fact that some parents may not disclose full details about the educational needs of their child until they have already been enrolled.

In 2011 our first group of students with special educational needs graduated the school successfully, and most of them are now first year students at Moscow universities. This article details the experiences of a visitor from the USA who came to our school and was positively affected by our Integration Project.

Interviews with Lucie Hall & Lenka Tejkalova, Lauder Schools of Prague, Czech Republic

 Pedagogy  No Responses »
May 142012
 

This week the World ORT Education Blog moves to the Czech Republic, and specifically to the Lauder Schools of Prague, with which World ORT is a partner. I first caught up with Lucie Hall, World ORT representative and teacher at the school, who describes the demographic challenge which the school has faced and how it has boosted its reputation in a drive to attract more students.

“Like many schools all over the Czech Republic, Lauder Schools of Prague has been struggling to fill its student capacity since the mid-1990s. As a consequence of the 1989 Velvet Revolution and the subsequent fall from power of the Communist Party, social and cultural expectations of family life changed dramatically. More women decided to pursue careers, before having children at a later stage. This resulted in a significant drop in the birth rate post-1989 and therefore a reduced demand for school places later down the line. For Lauder Schools of Prague, which draws its Jewish students from an already small pool, this sometimes meant having as few as eight to ten students in a school grade. Despite the fact that these small groups of students could benefit from highly individualized tuition, this was neither an economically viable situation for the school nor a socially satisfying situation for the students.

Things have changed in the last five years, thanks in part to a national baby boom.  Our school opened a kindergarten in 2009, which is 100% full with Jewish children. Our primary school is now 90% full, and this surge is working its way up towards the high school: this year we had 58 students apply for the 18 places available in the first grade.

We believe that these increased numbers are not only due to demographic trends, but also due to the reputation of our school improving significantly. Our school has many features which make it attractive to prospective students:

  • We are the only Jewish school in the Czech Republic, giving us an immediate competitive advantage.
  • Classes have a maximum of 20 students, as opposed to the national average of 35. This helps to provide students with individual attention and a highly personalized learning environment.
  • Language classes are streamed according to ability across year groups, rather than across single year groups. This allows for a greater number of ability streams, and encourages students of different ages to get to know each other.
  • The school has a cosmopolitan atmosphere, relative to other schools in the Czech Republic, welcoming students from a variety of countries such as Israel, Russia and Canada.
  • We have a number of good international links. For example, the school is partnered with the Ulus Ozel Mosevi Lisesi School in Istanbul and the Angelo Sacerdoti School in Rome, with the goal of introducing the students to different Jewish communities around the world.
  • 90% of our students successfully apply to university – both at home and abroad.
  • Our facilities – sponsored by ORT – are excellent, for example the Tye and Lauder-ORT Technology Center & PC lab, interactive whiteboards, and interdisciplinary technology labs – including a geographical information systems center.
  • Students are able to attend the World ORT English & Science Summer School in London.
  • Teachers participate in World ORT teaching training specialist seminars.”

 

My second interviewee in the Czech Republic was Lenka Tejkalova – English and Maths teacher for 5 years at the Lauder Schools of Prague – who outlined to me the school’s pedagogical approach to interdisciplinary teaching. Lenka is working on the final stages of her PhD in Mathematical Education, with a focus on Content and Language Integrated Learning.

Can you summarize the theory of interdisciplinary teaching, as implemented at the school?

Interdisciplinary teaching is an important concept in the Czech educational system. A national curricular reform in 2005 prescribed that school curricula should no longer be structured around specific subjects, but rather around larger fields of study which drew attention to the links between subjects. So long as they adhered to this directive, schools were empowered to devise their own interdisciplinary curricula and learning structures.

In response, the Lauder Schools of Prague dedicated several weeks of their teachers’ time to careful design of a new curriculum under the supervision of a specialized coordinator. This gave teachers the opportunity to examine their individual subject syllabi and reorganize them in a way that produced common topics or historical eras that could be approached from the perspective of different subjects at the same time in the school year. For example, a topic like “Romanticism” could be tackled in the same month in language classes, history, art, and quite possibly in science too.

Can you provide specific examples of interdisciplinary teaching at the school?

Aside from the general interconnectedness of the whole curriculum, we have established a specialized subject called “The World in Context” – which is taught for two years at middle school (students aged 14-15) and then for one year at high school (students aged 17). The development of this subject was informed by the theory of CLIL – “Content and Language Integrated Learning” – which specifies the need for content aims, linguistic aims and cognitive aims.

At middle school level, the subject merges English as a foreign language with History and Social Science. Most of the materials the students work with are in English. The topics cover a range of historical events and their influence on the modern world, for example:

  • the early history of America, to illustrate its position in modern world;
  • colonization and decolonization, to explain a number of modern political conflicts;
  • slavery, as a starting point for a debate on racism;
  • influential women in different areas of human interest, to focus on the changing role of women in society.

We ask students from the high school to give sample presentations in English, and we often get students working in groups. The content aim of the subject is to make students aware of the historical background of some modern issues. The linguistic aims are for students to be able to find relevant texts in English, to distil the main point from an un-adapted English text, to follow an adapted lecture in English, and to be able to prepare and give a short presentation on a topic of their own choice. The cognitive and metacognitive aims are to trigger critical thinking in students, to teach them to identify cause/effect relationships from a text, to work with timelines, mindmaps and conceptual maps, to work effectively in a group, and to be able to prepare a poster presentation of a topic of their choice.

At high school level, it is primarily the students who decide the direction of this subject, given that their level of English is good enough to follow un-adapted texts and programs in English. In each fortnightly lesson, the students suggest topics from current affairs that they would like to deal with, discuss their suggestions amongst themselves, and then choose the topic of the next lesson. Each of them prepares an introductory presentation on one of the aspects of the issue at hand. For example, when the topic was the London Riots, the individual presentations focused on: timeline, outcomes, reasons, coverage in official media, coverage on social media, parallels with Brighton Riots from 1960′s, parallels with and differences from current student riots in the Czech Republic. A debate then takes place to identify connections between the individual presentations, and more information is supplied by the teacher to complete the picture – typically statistics, infographics and video input. Native speakers and international studies specialists are often invited to take part in the debate. At the end of the lesson, the students are assigned homework which is invariably a piece of academic writing on the current topic. The content aim is to make students aware of current events and their coverage in the media. The linguistic aim focuses on academic English – to present, to take part in academic debate, and to write academic texts (summaries, different types of essays, critical reviews). The cognitive and metacognitive aims are to teach students how to read statistics critically (both in textual and graphical representations), to work with both formal and informal resources, and to quote correctly.

There is yet a further area in which interdisciplinary teaching and learning features in our school. Each autumn, a school-wide, term-long project is carried out. The topics vary; in past years they have included “Israel”, ”The Maharal – 400 years of Rabbi Low and the Golem” and “Romanticism – the era of Karel Hynek Mácha”. The teachers design a series of workshops, often unrelated to any particular school subject, that approach the central topic from different perspectives. To take Romanticism as an example, one workshop retraced the travels of one of the biggest Romantic Czech author, another one focused on Science in Romanticism, another prepared a show based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. During the Israel project, one workshop prepared a book of endangered Israeli species, another one carried out research amongst Israelis from different waves of aliyah, another prepared an original board game with trivia about Israel. The students can choose any workshop they like, and groups are composed of middle and high school students together. At the end of the project, each of the workshops has a major presentation at a whole-school event; reports from each workshop are also published on a DVD and in a booklet.

What do you see as the benefits of interdisciplinary teaching?

The main benefit of the CLIL-based World in Context is that students see English language as a tool to gather relevant and meaningful information. They acquire the language naturally, especially in middle school level where attention is paid to careful linguistic scaffolding. This allows the students to focus on the content and skills. Even low-achievers in English show greater motivation in this subject than in standard English lessons. It gives the students the chance to show their knowledge outside the “box” of individual school subjects. By individualizing their tasks, we give them the chance to contribute from their own experience, which is again a highly motivating factor.

The school-wide, term-long project, with its variety of workshops, provides the students with the chance to see one topic from a number of different perspectives. This is a more realistic view than the standard single-subject approach.  Students also get to work with schoolmates who they do not normally meet or interact with. In addition, students see their teachers leading workshops outside their area of professional expertise, for example their Hebrew teacher is a professional cook or their Physics teacher is a History enthusiast. This helps to create a more intimate school environment and raises students’ interest in a variety of fields.

As far as the curriculum-scale interdisciplinary approach is concerned, the research mapping the effects of this relatively new reform has not yet been finished. However, I am deeply convinced about the positive contribution of this approach to effective learning.  For example, as a Mathematics teacher, it provides me with a valuable chance to synchronize my teaching with a Physics teacher, so that I can pre-teach equations to students before they need them, or so that they can practise dealing with expressions outside of my class.

What do you see as the challenges of interdisciplinary teaching?

The major challenge for both the curriculum scale approach and the school-wide, term-long projects is in the level of detailed planning needed amongst all teachers.  If this goes well, implementation is smooth.

The challenges connected to the World in Context subject are more significant. Since we have only started teaching the subject recently, and given that it feeds off current events, there are practically no pre-existing teaching materials. Teachers need to look up all resources and adapt them carefully. This is extremely demanding, but if not done properly and if the scaffolding is insufficient, it may lead to a complete failure of the lesson. The teacher needs to be aware of the level of different students in both language and content subjects, and to be able to individualize the activities so that weaker English-speakers are not disadvantaged. Yet another challenge is fair evaluation. So far, we have decided to grade the students based predominantly on their portfolios – folders in which the students collect their classwork and homework, together with any other materials they find relevant to the topic discussed. The students can choose to express themselves in Czech when tested; all tests are open-book (especially since they focus on cause/effect rather than data) and employ a variety of non-text-bound exercises (for example, graphic organizers of different types). However, the debate on how much linguistic skills influence students’ performance in such a subject is always an issue, especially if you have an almost native speaker and an elementary student in the same class.

 

World ORT’s next Hatter educational seminar – in October 2012 in London – is on the subject of interdisciplinary learning. Watch this space for materials and feedback from the seminar.

 

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