Goal 4: Quality Education
ENSURE INCLUSIVE AND EQUITABLE QUALITY EDUCATION AND PROMOTE LIFELONG LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL
Research
Ten senior researchers and 30 postdoc and graduate students lead the Center for the Study of Child Development. Basic science questions regarding the nature of socio-emotional development across the lifespan and its implications and applications for the “real-life” of children and their families is the group’s primary focus.
The Safra Center conducts training courses in literacy and numeracy assessment, as well as remedial instruction for at-risk learners to assist field professionals. The training is based on empirical research examining neurobiological, cognitive, affective, socio-emotional and academic foundations of school and preschool learning in Hebrew, Arabic and English.
How do we best train our teachers to thrive in school environments? Prof. Lily Orland-Barak from the Faculty of Education et al. published an article in the Journal of Teacher Education examining the theoretical underpinnings practices associated with each approach, and identifies the major challenges facing preservice teachers.
The Ofakim honors program allows students with outstanding individual potential and intellectual curiosity to develop their talents in a supportive and challenging environment. The program exposes students to a variety of philosophical viewpoints and academic disciplines, encouraging both interdisciplinary thinking and creative originality. The aim of the program is to encourage students to choose research tracks in their own field of study and to make significant contributions to society. Students admitted to the program follow a double-track course of studies towards a B.A. and subsequently enroll in the program, in addition to their own chosen discipline.
Public Engagement
More than 31,000 refugees and asylum seekers currently live in Israel. According to Israeli law, all children residing in Israel are entitled to free public education. However, many cities do not allow asylum seekers’ children to attend school despite this obligation. Since its establishiment in 2014, the Clinic for Law and Education Policy has represented hundreds of asylum seeker children and their parents in multiple cities in Israel and filed multiple petitions on their behalf.
As the digital divide widened during COVID-19, the Learning In a NetworKed Society (LINKS) Israeli Center of Research Excellence (I-CORE) continued to generate a critical mass of research to bring about a paradigm shift in preparing citizens for lifelong learning in today’s information- based, networked society.
After completing her MSc, Hadar Elyashiv, a doctoral student at the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences studying submarine landslides, traveled to the University of Bremen, where she became the co-founder of the Once Upon a Time Project – a book of scientific fairy tales with an important message for the young and old. The Once Upon a Time project aims to communicate science through short stories that encourage dialogue between scientists and the general public, especially children, our next generation.
Teaching with the Heart and Mind and Research and Advancement of Giftedness and Excellence Center (RANGE) are both advanced research centers operated within the Faculty of Education. Teaching with the Heart and Mind seeks to develop an integrative model for the teaching of 21st century skills. With the support of the Trump Foundation, the RANGE Center inspires and guides communities of practice of secondary school math teachers to teach math at an advanced level, promote literacy, and integrate creative activities in the classroom.
Learning & Students
Our Etgar Computer Science Program attracts excelling high school students like Ibrahim Jubran. After joining University of Haifa as a high school student, Jubran continued to undergraduate studies and then to PhD candidacy. Ibrahim received an Outstanding Honorable Mention for his group’s paper on big data compression algorithms competing against some 9,000 entries at the 2019 NeurIPS.
Learning Disabilities in the Arabic Language, Brain and Learning, Bibliotherapy and Educational Administration for Officers and Security Forces are among the more than 20 diverse Masters programs offered within the Faculty of Education.
More than 25,000 students, 5,000 educators and 1,000 schools are involved in integration of innovative instructional practices learned through a variety of faculty laboratories and research projects.
Operations
The ‘Transformation Award’ received from the Israeli Chamber of Information Technology recognized our swift response to the pandemic, moving thousands of courses online through a hybrid MOODLE and Zoom system.
Updated guidelines were published and promoted to ensure the proper adaptations for testing students with learning disabilities. These guidelines are intended to uphold the rights of these students throughout their studies.