New Faculty for Science & Education

The Technion’s Department of Education in Science and Technology is now a Faculty

Faculty Dean Prof. Orit Hazan: “This is not just a symbolic change”

The Faculty’s “Views” program brings hundreds of Technion alumni back to the Technion to complete another degree: mathematics, science and technology education. Many of them are already teaching in the Israeli school system.

Prof. Orit Hazan, Dean of the Faculty of Education Science and Technology at the Technion
Photo Credit: Technion Spokesperson’s Office

The Technion’s Department of Education in Science and Technology is now a Faculty. Since its establishment 50 years ago, the unit has steadily grown and expanded its activity, and currently employs 12 faculty members, offers undergraduate and advanced degree programs, diverse high quality research and the Views program.

The “Views” program, born out of the Technion’s commitment to promoting quality science, technology and engineering education in Israel, provides an opportunity for Technion alumni to earn an additional undergraduate degree as teachers of mathematics, science or technology.  The Technion funds tuition of students in the program fully, without requiring a commitment by the students to work in the formal education system.

The department officially became a faculty on June 28, 2015. “This change,” said Faculty Dean Prof. Orit Hazan, “expresses the Technion’s recognition of the unit as a faculty with a status equal to that of the other Technion’s faculties, whose contribution to the State of Israel is known worldwide. The Faculty’s activities reflect the Technion’s social commitment, and the declaration that it is now a Faculty has operative significance that goes far beyond the symbolic change. Our current goal is to position our area of specialization – quality education in science and technology – as a profession that is in demand. The people who choose to work in this area affect the State of Israel and contribute to its economy just as much as Technion graduates in science and engineering do. We consider science and technology education as a means of enabling all schoolchildren to realize their diverse skills.

The official change in the status of the unit was preceded by a recommendation of an international quality assessment commission (on behalf of the CHE – The Israeli Council for Higher Education). After a thorough review of the department, the commission recommended that it be declared a faculty. The recommendation states that the unit is “focused on science and technology education and dedicated to a wide range of topics related to education in the State of Israel…  We praise the focus on engineering, science and mathematics education, which reflects a broad view of the needs of the Israeli economy in general and the hi-tech sector in particular. We were particularly impressed by the Views program, which has succeeded in bringing teachers with excellent knowledge in science and mathematics to the school system.”

Technion Alumni Association Chair Eyal Kaplan said that “The declaration of the change in the status of the unit constitutes recognition of the Technion’s important contribution to the primary and post-primary school system – through academic research, with the goal of improving teaching methods and increasing schoolchildren’s openness to science and technology, and also through the practical training of educators in the field. While the Technion is known as a university that has made a decisive contribution to the image, quality and status of Israel’s hi-tech industry, few people know that a select group of Technion alumni are filling the ranks in science and technology education in Israel – from classroom teachers to senior officials in the school system.”

About the Faculty

The Faculty of Education Science and Technology, as it is now called, is engaged in research in STEM Education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education), mainly in the context of high school and college studies. The Faculty trains teachers and principals in these areas and designs and evaluates innovative teaching methods and programs. Faculty members are engaged in many diverse fields, including science communication (accessibility of science to the public), neuroeducation (identification of the brain mechanisms that are active in learning), teaching in industry and encouraging schoolchildren to choose science and engineering. Research in these areas is carried out in cooperation with other faculties at the Technion, with the world’s leading universities (Stanford, Cornell, MIT and others) and with leading companies including Intel, Microsoft and Google.

In its four years of existence, some 330 Technion alumni, engineers and scientists with vast experience, have taken part in the Views program. The program, which provides Technion alumni with an additional degree (science and technology education), is bringing about a substantial change in the teaching of STEM subjects at many schools. According to Shlomi Dahan, the principal of Haifa’s Municipal High School No. 5, “Teachers who came from ‘Views’ have made a great contribution to the change at Municipal High School No. 5, where the number of students taking advanced level mathematics and physics has doubled in four years. Today, 32% of the students at the school take the advanced level matriculation exams in these subjects.” The knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering of the Technion alumni makes it possible to train them to teach at the most advanced levels.

The Faculty played a central role also in the development of the of the Technion’s first MOOC course (through the Coursera platform), initiated and manages the “My Teacher – a Teacher for Life” project, in which students at the Technion choose the teachers that guided their way and led them to the Technion, and is involved in many significant processes at the Technion and in Israel’s education system.