About the project
The TEAMS project (Teaching Explorations to All Mathematics Students) aims at exposing mathematics teachers to teaching practices that promote explorative participation.
The project is based on various mathematics teaching and learning approaches, including: 5 practices for promoting productive mathematics discussions (Smith & Stein, 2011), accountable talkTM and Sfard's commognitive framework (Sfard, 2008).
The project is based first and foremost on long-term teachers' professional development (60 – 150 hours) during which the teachers are exposed to and practice teaching that promotes explorative learning. This type of teaching is characterized by high cognitive demanding tasks, opportunities for students' struggle with the task and emphasis on connections among concepts and mathematical ideas.
Explorative teaching is intended for students of all tracks and is especially designed for heterogeneous classrooms. Video-taping of teachers recording their own lessons is key to this project, which combines research and development.
These recordings provide a basis for reflection and methodological analysis, by the teachers and by the research team.
The project was established with the support of the Trump foundation during the 2016-12017 school-year, in two locations: in Tel-Aviv district (Levinsky College of Education) and in Haifa (at the Technion).
During the 2017-2018 school-year, four new PD group were opened. In addition, a PD for elementary school teachers has been running in Tel-Aviv since 2016.
