XI NIS International Research-to-Practice Conference

Inspirational Speakers

International Speakers

Yoram Harpaz

Prof. Yoram Harpaz is senior lecturer in Beit Berl College in Israel. He was a teacher in High School, a journalist, a project manager in Branco Weiss Institute for the Development of Thinking, and the Director of Mandel School for Educational Leadership. The topic of his dissertation (written in Harvard University and was submitted to the Hebrew University) is teaching thinking. He published six books in Hebrew, one in English (Teaching and Learning in a Community of Thinking: The Third Model, Springer, 2014), and many articles (most of them in Hebrew) about the aims of education, teaching and learning and teaching thinking. His recent book (Designing Educational Environments: The Guide) was published in Hebrew and will be published in English and Chinese.

XI NIS International Research-to-Practice Conference, 24-25 October 2019: Keynote Speech

Teaching and Learning in a Community of Thinking

The educational efforts to promote good thinking – efficient, critical and creative – within the traditional school are futile. The very structure of the traditional school prevents students from thinking for themselves. In order to cultivate good thinking, we must change the regularities and the routines of the traditional school. The model of Intel-lect School I developed for Intel Company in Israel is aimed to achieve such a structural change (See, Teaching and Learning in a Community of Thinking. Springer, 2014). Intel-lect School is based on an alternative classroom called a community of thinking – a kind of a think tank which copes with a real-life problem. The process of teaching and learning in the community of thinking is going through three stations: fertile question, research, and concluding performance. The facilitator presents to the community of thinking a fertile question which has six characteristics: open, undermining, rich, relevant, charged and practical. After a few encounters in which he initiates the learners to the fertile question, the learners invent their own research questions which relate to the fertile question and divide into research teams evolving the research questions. Then they suggest research plans and start their research. At the third station the students present their findings and insights in a concluding performance. The presentation will display the theory and practice of these alternative school and classroom.

XI NIS International Research-to-Practice Conference, 24-25 October 2019: Presentation

How to design a new educational environment in six steps

The aim of this presentation is to demonstrate a pedagogical-strategic thought. The presentation will open with a theoretical exposition of the three educational meta-narratives that dominate the educational discourse, will proceed with the implementation of these meta-narratives in the six means of education – the curriculum, the pattern of teaching, the method of assessment, the organizational structure, the educational climate and the physical conditions, and conclude with practical reflection on the whole process. The presentation is based on the presenter’s book that was recently published in Hebrew and will be published in English, Chinese and Arabic. The below flow chart represents the process of the pedagogical-designing line of thought.