Integrated Mathematics (Matematica Meshulevet) curriculum program
Project heads
Prof. Ruhama Even
Dr. Alex Friedlander
Coordinator
Dr. Naomi Robinson
Development team – current members
Rachel Bouhadana
Bracha Elias
Tali Furman
Dr. Alex Friedlander
Gabriela Goldenberg
Dr. Nurit Hadas
Dr. Naomi Robinson
Dr. Naomi Taizi
Rachel Zaks
Development team – alumni
Elian Ben-Dror
Dr. Nilli Hirshfeld
Maya Koren
Sara Kiro
Gila Osruso-Hagag
Edit Pilosof
Dr. Hanna Stein
Mathematics consultant
Prof. Edriss Titi, Faculty of mathematics and computer science
Summary
In response to the introduction of a new national junior-high school mathematics curriculum in 2009, by the Ministry of Education, we began developing a new comprehensive junior-high school mathematics curriculum program – Integrated Mathematics (Matematica Meshulevet). The program emphasizes problem solving, thinking, and reasoning for all students; and connections among mathematical concepts, topics and domains. The curriculum development team comprises experienced mathematics curriculum developers and mathematics teachers. Edriss Titi from the Faculty of Mathematics serves as our scientific advisor. The textbooks are developed in regular/extended and limited scope versions ((blue and green strands respectively). They are written in Hebrew and are translated to Arabic, as well as converted to a version suitable for ultra-orthodox Jews. A teacher guide and other resources accompany the textbooks. Findings from my studies on the interactions among teachers, curriculum and classrooms (described below) and on teacher knowledge and practice contribute to the development of the curriculum materials and the teacher guides. The experimental editions of all the textbooks and the final edition of the regular/extended scope version of the 7th grade textbook are completed. We are now in the midst of developing the final edition of the rest. Integrated Mathematics (Matematica Meshulevet) curriculum program is used in more than 250 schools throughout Israel, and we provide counseling and continuous support to hundreds of teachers all over the country via yearlong and summer courses for teachers and an interactive website (visited almost 200,000 times during the past year).