New Perspectives in Science Education

Teaching science in middle school is very challenging since it is an extremely demanding discipline, and in addition, the teacher has to be an expert in chemistry, biology, and physics whereas he has usually mastered only one of them. While many authorities offer disciplinary, professional development courses for teachers, these courses usually take place out of school and teachers participate as individuals. Professional development courses, occasionally given in schools, are generic, and do not strengthen and revise the disciplinary knowledge. In our unique program - Team workshops - we offer a series of short, and intense, active workshops, given in schools. Our experts come to the school to work with the teams of science teachers, in their habitual environment (the lab technicians are invited as well).
The main goal of the team workshops is that teachers will develop new curricular activities implementing new pedagogic tools that fit the needs of their students. The workshops are varied, but all of them are based on three main elements - reinforcing the subject matter, experiencing new pedagogic tools, and collaborating for the development of new activities. Operating the Team workshops program has both benefits and challenges. This is the third year of the program, and teachers’ feedback in anonymous, assessment questionnaires are very positive. More than 90% of them note that the workshops contribute to their work, and ask for additional workshops.

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