• activities,  Digital tools,  Diversity,  International collaboration,  pre-service teachers,  relational education,  teacher-education

    GatherEd: Learning and Creating Global Teacher Education

    May 17, 2023

    What does GatherEd mean to me? For the second time, GatherEd has provided an opportunity to halt the everyday race, always loaded with local worries, administration, tasks and surroundings, to zoom out of routine and into crucial issues from a different perspective. GatherEd means a chance to grapple with the complexity of education in a changing global reality, collaboratively unpacking terms like multiculturalism and multilingualism. GatherEd has given me the space to think about global teacher education, digital responsibility, inclusion, accessibility and democratic competencies alongside dedicated colleagues from Norway, Iceland, Greece, Spain and Israel. I am grateful for the invitation to attend my second GatherEd workshop at the University of…

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  • pre-service teachers,  teacher-education

    Bursting with pride! A moment of optimism. 

    January 11, 2023

    It is easy to get depressed by the education provided in Israeli schools. There is a never-ending progression of Education Ministers who do not desire the job and are not interested in solving the long-term challenges. There is, for example, a severe lack of teachers; those that have remained in the system are burnt out and recovering from post-COVID distress. The classes are overcrowded, and educators, harshly underpaid and undervalued, suffer. Everyone complains about the academic level, the quality of instruction, the violence, and the lack of motivation at all levels. In the college, it is easy to focus on those pre-service teachers who are absent too often, who do…

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  • activities,  pre-service teachers,  relational education,  teacher-education,  Teaching,  Writing

    Nice to meet you: Letters and questionnaires for building relationships with students

    November 2, 2022

    Teaching and learning are relational processes; building significant relationships in large classes requires planning, time, and hard work. Showing genuine interest in who my students are as individuals is crucial in developing trust and a feeling of safety in my classroom.  At the beginning of each academic semester, I make sure I allow my pre-service teacher students at the Oranim College of Education to introduce themselves to me in different ways. I devote most of the first lesson to an introductory letter in a few of my courses. In the past ten years or more, I have been following a strategy I learned from Professor Julian Kitchen from Brock University…

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  • Diversity,  International collaboration,  Professional Learning,  teacher-education,  Teaching

    GatherED: Global Teacher Education “Languages as tools for developing global citizenship”

    October 20, 2022

    I am in a hotel in Crete writing to process an inspiring three-day inspiring workshop funded by the Erasmus + program. When I arrived in Rethymnon in Crete from Israel, I knew I would be participating in a GatherED international workshop about language education in multi-lingual and multi-cultural classroom environments. I immediately discovered that the learning was engrossing, and the powerful emotional connections with fellow participants extended well beyond any expectation.  I flew to Rethymno with four Oranim College of Education colleagues. I knew Janina Kahn Horwitz, the head of my department, very well, but the others were only acquaintances. Representing the college together in an international context instantly bonded…

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  • Assessment,  pre-service teachers,  relational education,  teacher-education,  Teaching

    “More than the calf wants to suck the cow wants to suckle”

    June 22, 2022

    It’s that time of year again – assignments, follow-ups, reminders, and grades. It’s the time of the year when I look at my Google Sheets for each course, fill in the grades from recent assessment tasks, and organise the data. This is often the period when it becomes evident that one or more students will fail the course.  Nothing is a surprise here. Students who are behind or are at risk of failing have had numerous ‘nudges’ during the semester. They have had warnings that they are close to the attendance quota cut-off mark, can’t miss additional lessons, or have received emails that they haven’t submitted work. These messages always…

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  • teacher-education,  Teaching

    Everyone is talking about ‘back to normal’

    November 6, 2021

    ‘Back to normal’, everyone is talking about ‘back to normal’. What is normal? Is it possible to go back after what we have experienced? None of us knows if we are in the wake of the COVID19 crisis or in the midst of another of the unfolding waves of the virus; none of us can tell if the routine we are creating at present will remain stable for an extended period. Everything is still uncertain and fragile, and we are all learning to live with unpredictability. I constantly remind my pre-service teacher students that the flexibility they are acquiring in these ever-changing dynamic times will serve them well in their…

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  • Digital tools,  Literacy,  Online Education,  pre-service teachers,  teacher-education

    Grand Finale – Goosechase in the gardens

    July 27, 2021

    Unfortunately, the pressures of this impossible academic year have caused me to neglect my writing and abandon my blog. Teaching and supporting pre-service teachers through the turmoil of the pandemic was challenging and burdensome, but I learnt a great deal. I sincerely hope to grapple with some of those understandings here on the blog very soon.  In the last week of the academic year, I chose to close two of my online courses face-to-face with creative and active events outside in the fresh air. Both courses were didactics courses for language teaching; one was for EFL pre-service teachers, and the other was for pre-service teachers of Hebrew language and literacy.…

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  • Online Education,  relational education,  teacher-education,  Teaching

    Building community through student choice

    January 25, 2021

    I have just finished teaching ‘Rhetoric Skills: Theory and Practice’. It’s the first time I have taught the semester-long course for first-year BA and preservice teachers and retraining students studying towards their teaching certificate in EFL. Due to the college closure and three periods of lockdown during the semester, I taught the course online. I have already written about my informal meetings with some of the students here. The cohort made up of 42 students was heterogeneous and included students from many Israeli cultural groups. Meeting with Jewish students, both religious and secular, Christians and Muslims from a broad geographical radius in the north of Israel, made the experience richer…

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  • Online Education,  pre-service teachers,  teacher-education,  Teaching

    Classroom observation 2020: As bizarre as it gets!

    January 1, 2021

    This week I observed one of my pre-service teachers in an English lesson. It was the student’s first observation, and I was eager to see how she is progressing. I thought I knew what to expect; after all, this is my third year working with students in their school practicum. What did I know in advance? I knew the student would teach via Zoom, as she teaches in another school and because of COVID 19, can’t be exposed to other groups of pupils. She has never met the pupils face-to-face. After reading the lesson plan and giving feedback twice, I knew what material the class would learn and how. I…

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  • Literacy,  Online Education,  teacher-education,  Teaching

    Four Day Teaching Marathon

    December 20, 2020

    Last week I taught a marathon. Sitting at my desk, I ran like the wind through four intensive days in which I taught a whole semester course.  In my last post, I wrote about my dilemmas about dividing the students into groups to allow more intimate and significant learning. I was concerned that although I had offered three different time slots each day to cater to the needs of students with work and parenting responsibilities, the groups were very uneven. I had 23 students signed up for the morning sessions, eight for the afternoon and eight for the evening. After days of deliberation, I decided to encourage movement between the…

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