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1、Teaching thinking on a national scale: Israels pedagogical horizonsAnat ZoharDirector of Pedagogical AffairsIsrael Ministry of EducationContact information:Prof. Anat ZoharDirector of Pedagogical AffairsIsrael Ministry of Education2 Deborah Hanevia St. Jerusalm, Israel, 91911, Tel: 972 2 5602236Fax:
2、 972 2 5602085Email: anatzoeducation.gov.ilTotal number of words: 2499IntroductionThe call for teaching in a way that would invoke thinking as a daily routine in schools is by now several decades old (e.g., Resnick, 1987; Resnick. & Klopfer, 1989; Pauls, 1992; Perkins, 1992; Bruer, 1993). Like other
3、 countries, Israel had had its share of projects that see the implementation of inquiry and higher order thinking in schools as their main goal (e.g., Schwarz, Neuman, Gil & Ilya, 2003; Zohar, 2004). However, although many of these projects were quite successful, they did not succeed in changing the
4、 bulk of teaching and learning in Israeli schools. Rather, such projects still exist as isolated pockets or islands of exemplary teaching within a sea of much more traditional schooling that emphasizes rote learning of facts and algorithmic problem solving. With an eye to changing this state of affa
5、irs, the Israeli Ministry of Education has adopted a new national educational policy. A document explaining this policy (called Pedagogical Horizons for Learning ) was first published in January 2007. The rationale to the new policy is explained by making reference to the desired characteristics of
6、future school graduates, formulated in the following way: We live in an era characterized by short-lived generations of knowledge that succeed each other at a dizzying pace. In order to ensure that graduates of Israels education system are able to successfully meet the cultural, economic, scientific
7、 and technological challenges of the 21st century, we must change our conception of what such graduates should know. One of the main goals of the education system has been, and still is, for graduates to have extensive knowledge in a variety of academic disciplines. However, our future graduates wil
8、l not be able to rely on a set, pre-defined body of knowledge that they have acquired at school; rather they will need, higher-order thinking abilities, the ability to make judgments, and the skills for creative and critical thinking, all of which will enable them to attain new knowledge throughout
9、their lives. The material taught must be meaningful, understandable and relevant to life outside the school walls. The skills imparted should help our future graduates function more effectively in tomorrows world. Citizens of a democratic state need the ability to make sound, moral judgments, to thi
10、nk critically, and to defend ones position rationally all of which reinforce the importance of the scholastic and ethical aspects of teaching thinking within the education system. The effort to teach thinking is thus the foundation for all learning activities that take place in school: knowledge acq
11、uisition, in-depth familiarity with cultural issues, and the formulation of intelligent moral positions .From policy statement to practiceNumerous leading educators world-wide have developed means to teach for thinking and understanding in well designed and often well supported educational projects.
12、 Moving a whole educational system from a focus on rote learning towards a focus on higher order thinking and deep understanding must lean on the knowledge gained from such projects but must also lean on strategies for implementing systemic educational change. The practical question raised by the Mi
13、nistrys statements about teaching thinking is how this goal can be implemented on a national scale. The model that was adopted for this purpose is a model developed by Tamir (2006) who had implemented teaching and learning by inquiry in biology education in all Israeli high-schools in the early 70s
14、of the previous century. Tamir figured out that translating the inquiry-oriented American BSCS curriculum and learning materials into Hebrew was only one of the necessary steps for a sustainable reform. Two additional indispensable steps were extensive professional development courses and the develo
15、pment of appropriate assessment tools. Indeed, the development of a hands on, inquiry oriented laboratory exam as a unique component of the Israeli biology matriculation exam that has been developed in this context, was one of the first examples world-wide of a performance assessment test given on a
16、 national scale. Other components of the biology matriculation exam that assessed inquiry thinking abilities were students individual research projects and open ended questions about a previously unseen scientific research article. Following Tamirs model, the policy stated in the Pedagogical Horizon
17、 document is implemented by working on three dimensions: (a) Curriculum, learning materials and standards; (b) Professional Development; and, (c) Assessment. Progress in these three dimensions needs to take place simultaneously. If we would change the tests without providing adequate learning materi
18、als and without helping teachers to develop appropriate ways of teaching, there will be protests from the field because students will not have the necessary skills for succeeding in the tests that would require higher order thinking. On the other hand, it is clear that an investment in professional
19、development and in curriculum and learning materials will not be efficient without a parallel change in assessment because teachers conceive the preparation of students for high-stake testing as an important part of their job. As long as such tests will continue to require mainly recall of facts and
20、 algorithmic solutions to routine problems, teachers will not teach for thinking even if they would participate in professional development programs that will advocate a thinking curriculum. It therefore seems likely that only simultaneous progress in the three dimensions mentioned earlier will inde
21、ed enable a systemic change in the desired direction. In order to be able to consider the feasibility of the planned change, it is important to know that the Israeli educational system is centralized. With approximately 1.8 million students (k-12th grade) there is basically one mandatory curriculum
22、prescribed by the Ministry of Education that covers a large percentage of what is taught in schools (although the schools that belong to the ultra-orthodox stream are exempt from most of this curriculum). At the end of 12th grade students take the matriculation exams that consist of 7 exams in manda
23、tory core subjects: Language (Hebrew/Arabic), English (as 2nd language), Mathematics, History, Bible, Literature and Civics. Additional subjects are mandatory in elementary and junior high schools (Science, Geography, 2nd foreign language, etc.). In addition, many additional subjects are electives i
24、n high school (e.g., Biology, physics, chemistry, communication, arts, computers, etc. ). For each subject there is a subjects chief supervisor S. C.P who is responsible for policy making, curriculum, teachers professional development and assessment in that particular subject. In what follows, I out
25、line the plan for each of the three dimensions mentioned earlier as well as provide some accounts of the first stages of the implementation process that took place during the first half on 2007. Curriculum, learning materials and standardsEach subject has a detailed curriculum that prescribes the go
26、als of instruction. Around the year 2000 the Ministry of Education had also adopted a decision to write detailed standards that have been completed in some subjects, but are still in progress in other subjects. An inspection of curricular documents in many subjects (e.g., science, civics, mathematic
27、) shows that higher order thinking goals are already there. The problem is that while these goals exist on the declarative level, they are not implemented. Thus, in most classrooms these goals are not expressed in the mainstream teaching and learning activities, nor are they apparent in textbooks an
28、d in tests. This indicates that although it is important to incorporate explicit thinking goals in curriculum documents, they can be insignificant if not accompanied by appropriate supporting means. Standards prove to be a complicated issue. Although drafts of science standards do have references to
29、 thinking goals, a thorough examination show that they are problematic in several ways. First, there is an innate tension between the content standards and the thinking standards. The content standards are very detailed, cutting the science curriculum into numerous tiny little bits of information, c
30、onsisting of isolated concepts that are disconnected to each other. This approach is contradictory to the spirit of teaching for thinking and understanding highlighting meaningful learning that needs to take place in context, and to learning that entails students active knowledge construction as the
31、y search for answers to questions (rather than rote-learning a list of static concepts). Second, there is the question of the amounts of material to be covered. When thinking standards are introduced, the amount of content must be reduced because teachers cant be expected to teach in more depth and
32、devote time to thinking and problem solving while covering the same amount of material as before. Third, the content standards consist of operational levels, that dictate exactly what do high and low performance levels require students to do in each topic. This means that for instance in topic A, a
33、low level of performance require students to know some concepts, while a high level of performance requires students to compare these concepts. However, a high level of performance in another topic, for instance topic B, requires students to provide an explanation, or to be able to formulate an argu
34、ment concerning the pertinent concepts. This means that the standards were written in a way that creates a tight connection between a specific thinking strategy and specific bits of information. This approach is problematic because the gist of teaching higher order thinking is flexibility and the ul
35、timate goal is transfer, i.e., that students would be able to apply a thinking skill taught in one context to different, new context rather than to link a thinking skill to a specific bit of information. The problems that were identified with the existing science standards with respect to the goal o
36、f teaching higher order thinking made it necessary for the team who is writing the science standards to re-think them. Currently, the team is working to develop a new model combining content and thinking standards in a way that will provide solutions to the problems described earlier, will be clear
37、enough to teachers and will be provide a template for the writing of the national assessment tests. The plan is that standards in other subjects will then follow the model that will be developed for the science standards. Professional developmentThe main difficulty in incorporating higher order thin
38、king into professional development programs is the lack of a large enough number of adequate experts that would be able to lead this theme, i.e., to teach in in-service and pre-service courses and to provide guidance in the field. Therefore, a necessary first step is to provide professional developm
39、ent for experts that would then be able to disseminate the thinking curriculum to other educators. The first course that took place in that venue was a thinking workshop for subjects chief supervisors (S. C.P). It should be noted that these people are usually exemplary teachers, who were at some poi
40、nt in their career appointed as teachers instructors, and then were chosen from all instructors to serve as S.C.P. They are therefore a unique group who has strong capabilities in both pedagogy and administration. During the past decades however, this group was never seen as the target of a professi
41、onal development program. Approximately 25 S.C.P joined the voluntary workshop that was offered to them by the Director of Pedagogical Affairs. The 56 hour workshop consisted of several topics: Theoretical issues and important concepts concerning instruction of higher order thinking, rationale and e
42、ducational means for developing appropriate learning materials, pedagogical approaches and tools for teaching thinking, appropriate ways of assessment, and strategies for implementing a change to incorporate the thinking curriculum on a national level. The workshop is already bearing fruit in the se
43、nse that several of the participants became enthusiastic about the thinking curriculum, and committed to its implementation. Since many of them are educational leaders in their respective fields, they are capable of implementing the ideas they had studied in the workshop in their respective subjects
44、 and of adapting them to the unique challenges and problems of each subject. In terms of professional development the implementation consists of courses for teachers instructors and workshops for teachers. Part of the curriculum for these PD courses, namely, the part consisting of general theoretica
45、l ideas and concepts about education for thinking is common for all subjects. However, most of the curriculum must be developed separately for each subject because it must consist of specific authentic examples for lessons, learning materials and pedagogies that are deeply embedded in the content an
46、d in the pedagogical content knowledge of each subject. Another venue for professional development involves pre-service education. Following the Ministry of Educations initiative and funding, a total of approximately 30 new courses about teaching thinking in a variety of school subjects is offered i
47、n several pre-service education programs during the school year 2007-2008.AssessmentThe Israeli matriculation exams have not been updated in several decades. The exams consist of predominately written tests with a large proportion of items that require recall of information and a small proportion of
48、 items that require thinking and understanding. Since the educational system is oriented towards teaching for the test, the matriculation exams indicate to teachers what type of learning is required and valued. The matriculation exams are therefore a conservative factor that leads the system to supe
49、rficial learning, putting off any chance of innovation and refreshment. Adapting the tests to the requirements of the 21st century is therefore a necessary condition for any change we would like to implement. The Ministry of Education has currently began a process of introducing gradual changes in the matriculation exams by using the following means: increasing the proportion of written items that require higher order thinking and of open-
