The Proteach team is currently involved in the preparation of the project’s evaluation plan for assessing the MITs’ performance in light of the project’s objectives. This initiative is carried out in the framework of work package 3 (WP3). To achieve this goal, on 26-27 July the team gathered for two intensive workshop days at Kfar Hamacabia, in Ramat Gan, to discuss and build the instruments (mainly questioners and interviews) for the pre- and post-interventions scheduled to start in October 2017.
The workshop was a great success, with 27 participants from the six colleges taking part in the project. The 2-full-day meeting allowed the teams to discuss crucial issues related to the MIT approach and its impact on the Israeli HEIs’ capacity to take a more effective role in the induction periods of beginning teachers in schools. Among other issues, the partners discussed the potential of merging Proteach’s MIT approach with the national Academy-Classroom initiative, which involves students in their 3rd year of study as “co-teachers” in schools. The different approaches of the schools’ staffs towards induction were highlighted in the discussion, agreeing that while beginning teachers are expected to become an integral part of the schools' teams in MITs, in the Academy-Classroom initiative the teacher students are perceived only as teachers’ assistants at school.
Another issue raised in the discussions was the difficulty to fund MITs and accommodate them in the schools’ time schedules, every year and in every school, given the small numbers of beginning teachers entering some of those schools, especially the small ones. Considering this fact, the partners discussed the possibility of having larger MITs, combining for this purpose a few schools together in the same region or under a common municipal umbrella.
Part of the time was devoted also to start the preparation of important components of the second year of the project – the MITs' syllabi and the courses in the HEIs.
