This chapter presents the "Agam Program for the Development of Visual Thinking" designed to actualize this vision. First, we relate to definitions of visual thinking and to the importance of developing visual thinking at a young age. Then, we describe the Agam Program for developing visual thinking and a visual language. We present the program's aims and content, the way they are contextualized in the teaching units for kindergarten teachers and school teachers, and the accessories kit that accompanies the program. We discuss the unique pedagogical approach – "visual pedagogy" – of the program and refer to the potential benefits of the program. The program's potential is to develop the children's visual thinking, problem solution skills and creativity. For this description we use authentic examples from four teaching units: Circle, Square, Patterns and Numerical Intuition. Later, we include research findings illustrating that children's visual thinking can be developed through of the Agam Program.

In 2008, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation started a 10-year program to promote science and math education in Israel. The program targeted motivated acting teachers of high-school biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics. It included two separate complementary components: a 2-year MSc degree track and a post-MSc track. The program exposed teachers to cutting-edge and core topics and approaches, and provided avenues to lead novel activities. Over its 10 years, 256 teachers graduated from the MSc track and about 100 teachers from the post-MSc track. Research and evaluation examined the outcomes and influence of the program in light of the "desired profile of the Rothschild-Weizmann graduate" developed in the first 5 years. Almost all graduates (97%) continued to teach in high school. Most of them reported having integrated new teaching strategies and topics in their practice and having adopted a reflective stance. About half of them assumed new positions after completing the program. Looking back on these 10 years is an opportunity to suggest insights on how to design and run research-practice partnerships in education. This chapter examines several challenges of the Rothschild-Weizmann program, and the strategies taken to address them.

In 2008, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation started a 10-year program to promote science and math education in Israel. The program targeted motivated acting teachers of high-school biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics. It included two separate complementary components: a 2-year MSc degree track and a post-MSc track. The program exposed teachers to cutting-edge and core topics and approaches, and provided avenues to lead novel activities. Over its 10 years, 256 teachers graduated from the MSc track and about 100 teachers from the post-MSc track. Research and evaluation examined the outcomes and influence of the program in light of the "desired profile of the Rothschild–Weizmann graduate" developed in the first 5 years. Almost all graduates (97%) continued to teach in high school. Most of them reported having integrated new teaching strategies and topics in their practice and having adopted a reflective stance. About half of them assumed new positions after completing the program. Looking back on these 10 years is an opportunity to suggest insights on how to design and run research–practice partnerships in education. This chapter examines several challenges of the Rothschild–Weizmann program, and the strategies taken to address them.

Over the last decades, videotaping has been widely accepted to be a useful tool for teachers' professional development-(PD) ([1], [2]). Compared with analyzing other teachers' videos, teachers who analyzed their own teaching experienced higher activation, manifested by higher immersion, resonance, and motivation. In addition, they became more aware of relevant components of teaching and learning ([3]). In this study, we adopted Mason's framework (1998) ([4]), for such levels, developed for mathematics teachers. This led us to develop a program The Video-Based Didactic discourse-(VBD discourse) whose aim is to provide mathematics and physics teachers with professional development. The mathematics education researchers' community has become interested in characterizing the required knowledge for mathematics teaching. Relying on Shulman's (1986) work, [5] defined the term "Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching"(MKT) as knowledge that crosses areas and levels of school mathematics, supports connected ideas, and emphasizes the ability to plan, integrate and manage appropriate mathematical content for teaching. Following this work, [6], presented six different components of MKT. Two of them are particularly relevant to this study: Specialized Content Knowledge-(SCK) and Knowledge of Content and Students-(KCS). The purpose of our research was to examine how the VBD discourse contributes to the development of five pre-service teachers' MKT, during their participation in a Didactics of mathematics course at the Academic College of Education. An analysis of the findings indicates that the VBD discourse based on their video mathematics teaching raised their awareness, and contributed to the development of their SCK and KCS.

Researchers from around the world have shaped knowledge integration (KI), a framework that captures the processes learners use to build on their multiple ideas and refine their understanding. KI emerged 25 years ago from syntheses of experimental, longitudinal, and meta-analytic studies of learning and instruction. Advances in KI have resulted from partnerships that combine expertise in learning, instruction, classroom teaching, assessment, technology, and the disciplines. This structured poster session includes partnerships that have advanced design of instruction, assessment, professional development, learning technologies, and research methodologies. Participants report on new technologies, including games, to strengthen KI; instructional designs that take advantage of collaboration to support KI; and extensions of KI to integrate science with other disciplines. They summarize exciting results and identify promising opportunities for advancing STEM instruction to promote intentional, life-long learners in the digital age.

The interrelations between Physics and Mathematics caught the attention of the physics education research community. Focusing mainly on students and teachers competency, the research in physics education (PER) found that learners, at different ages and levels, lack the ability to construct the mathematical models of physical processes or to describe the physical meaning of mathematical constructs. Mathematical knowledge was also found to reflect on the quality of explanations of physical phenomena. (Clement et al. 1981; Cohen et al. 1983; Rozier and Viennot in International Journal of Science Education 13: 159-170, 1991; Rebmann and Viennot 1994; Bagno et al. in Physics Education 43(1): 75-82, 2007; Redish and Smith in Journal of Engineering Education 97(3): 295-307, 2008; Baumert et al. 2010; Zuccarini and Michelini 2014). The approach that underlines our study adopts the view that the context of physics teaching invites investigating the interplay between physics and mathematics. This "Phys-Math" interplay is regarded as a complex two ways track by which the knowledge and understanding of physics is constructed by learners. Our multi-national group examines this subject from various perspectives: history and philosophy of science as well as its instruction in different levels from high school to university (Eylon et al. 2010; Pospiech and Matthias 2011; Lehavi et al. 2013; Pospiech et al. 2014, 2015). The present study follows our previous research in which we addressed, through interviews, the "Phys-Math" PCK of expert high school physics teachers from Israel and Germany (Lehavi et al. 2013, 2015; Pospiech et al. 2015). Here we report on a study which follows this research by analysing data collected from classes. The data was collected by videotaping physics lessons at middle school level. The videotapes were analysed, looking specifically for incidents in which Phys-Math interplay is evident.

Citizens need the capability to conduct their own inquiry projects so that they can make sense of claims about new energy policies, health remedies, or financial opportunities. To develop the lifelong capability to grapple with these dilemmas, we report on ways to design precollege units that engage students in realistic, personally relevant investigations. Our investigations and syntheses of related work have resulted in the knowledge integration framework. This constructivist framework shows that, to succeed, learners build on what they know and use reasoning strategies to make sense of new information. To help designers we have identified a pattern that can guide instructional designers. The pattern involves supporting students to articulate their existing ideas, add new, normative ideas, distinguish them from their existing ideas, and reflect on their experiences as they increase the coherence of their ideas. To guide students, we are currently investigating automated guidance based on analysis of natural language essays students write while investigating complex problems such as global climate change.

Research shows that professional learning communities of teachers support their professional development. The Department of Science Teaching at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel operates ten learning communities of high-school physics teachers, spread throughout the country, who meet face to face once in two weeks over the school year. Since the framework of these face to face communities was found to promote teachers' professional development, it was adopted to an online community, thus enabling more teachers to participate. The model of the online community was developed, enacted and studied in three one-year iterations. The first iteration employed a participatory design methodology with teachers, leading teachers from the face-to-face communities and experts from the physics group of the Science Teaching Department. The model program is hybrid, integrating several face to face meetings during the year and video conference meetings of 90 minutes taking place once in a week throughout the school year. The total number of the program is 60 academic hours. We describe the goals, activities and ways of enacting the face to face communities, as well as the model developed for the online community. Research goals are to explore the challenges of the online environment, the professional development of the teachers as a result of participating in the online community, the existence of central characteristics of a learning community, and teachers' views regarding the contribution of the learning community. We collected and analyzed video recordings of the community meetings, interviews and feedback questionnaires. Challenges emerged mainly due to the limitations in visibility in video meetings. This led to changes in the design of the online environment and the activities. Findings indicate that the model supports teachers' professional development and the creation of a professional learning community. Teachers' participation in the online community enabled them to be active and productive over the course of the meetings. Being a part of the community provided teachers with the feeling that they are not working alone, and that they have the opportunity to consult, discuss and share with peers and experts. Teachers implemented in their classrooms activities they experienced in the meetings and brought to the meetings evidence about their practice and their students' learning for collaborative reflection with their peers. Teachers became aware of their ability to make genuine changes in their students' ways of learning. This research contributes to the current body of knowledge regarding teachers' professional development through the framework of an online community.

Teachers’ involvement in curriculum design is essential for sustaining the relevance of technology-enhanced learning materials. Customizing—making small adjustments to tailor given materials to particular situations and settings—is one design activity in which busy teachers can feasibly engage. Research indicates that customizations based in evidence from student work lead to improved learning outcomes. In this paper, we examine the customizations of four middle and high school teachers during their enactments of web-based inquiry science units. We examine how specific technology features afforded their customizations by providing tools for making adaptations and by making student work available as evidence for those adaptations. Cases built from classroom video and field note observations, interviews, and teachers’ curriculum artifacts, revealed three kinds of customizations: (a) devising timely instructional interventions to provide individualized guidance; (b) planning activities and adjusting milestones to align with students’ progress; (c) modifying existing materials to better integrate content into overall curriculum plans; and (d) incorporating scaffolds to better address students’ needs. We also identified three technology features that supported teachers’ customizations: (1) a system that logs student work for teachers’ inspection; (2) tools for conducting dynamic, formative assessment; and (3) an authoring environment that supports the re-design of units at multiple levels of granularity. We end by suggesting design principles for curriculum materials that support teachers’ customizations, as well as future directions for technology that would enhance teachers’ participation as designers.

That mathematics is the "language of physics" implies that both areas are deeply interconnected, such that often no separation between "pure" mathematics and "pure" physics is possible. To clarify their interplay a technical and a structural role of mathematics can be distinguished. A thorough understanding of this twofold role in physics is also important for shaping physics education especially with respect to teaching the nature of physics. Herewith the teachers and their pedagogical content knowledge play an important role. Therefore we develop a model of PCK concerning the interplay of mathematics and physics in order to provide a theoretical framework for the views and teaching strategies of teachers. In an exploratory study four teachers from Germany and four teachers from Israel have been interviewed concerning their views and its transfer to teaching physics. Here we describe the results from Germany. Besides general views and knowledge held by all or nearly all teachers we also observe specific individual focus depending on the teachers' background and experiences. The results fit well into the derived model of PCK.

The worldwide reforms today in science and technology education reflect the view that 21st century teaching and learning should focus on the blending of specific skills, content knowledge, expertise and literacy. These reforms advocate self-directed learning and communication skills that pose a number of new challenges: how to blend the explicit instruction of learning skills into science contents instruction; how can the education system promote the development of selfdirected learners in heterogeneous classes?One solution is the development of digital environments for learning science content and science skills that will offer alternative paths of learning and develop students' self-regulation capabilities. However, developing such environments poses many questions for curriculum developers including suitability to different types of learners and the type of scaffolding needed to support and promote self-regulation and meaningful learning. The present study investigates some of these questions.The study was carried out in the context of 7th grade science curriculum that embedded the study of learning skills in science content. A digital learning environment and activities for 7th grade science through problem solving was designed with the aim of catering to the needs of different learners and to foster self-regulation capabilities. The activities accompany the study of several science ( chemistry) topics in the curriculum and several learning skills. The environment offers students a choice of alternative learning paths characterized by different degrees of scaffolding: an autonomous path without any scaffolding, a path with hints and a guided path that navigates students in the solution process. The scaffolding offered is conceptual, meta-cognitive, procedural or strategic.The goal of our study is to characterize the different self-regulating behaviors demonstrated while using different paths, and to identify students' considerations in choosing the particular learning paths in the digital environment. Additionally, the study appraised the manner in which these considerations relate to prior results on assessment tasks and students' self-regulation learning behaviors.The research population consists of 80 students who were taught the same curriculum materials. All students were asked to complete a self-regulation questionnaire, assessment tasks and were asked to write a reflective report. Following the assessment tasks the students worked with the digital environment. Data was obtained through use of tracing methods, from results of the digital activities, and from talk aloud protocols and interviews with selected students. Results show a variety of considerations for choosing learning paths including students' fear of failure, their perceived abilities, and their interest in being challenged. Further results shed light on the degree of contribution of the varied types of scaffolding. These results provide an important contribution to the further evolution of digital learning environments aimed at the development of self-directed learners.

Children learn in formal (school) and informal (out-of-school) contexts. Do these children integrate what they learn in these different contexts? While some research shows that they do most of the literature points to a serious lack of contact between these contexts when dealing with related content. During the last two decades, many education researchers have called to bridge this gap. The aim of this paper is to develop a model to guide dialogue and cooperation between staff members within formal and informal educational contexts, in order to foster this integration. We present: (1) a rationale for bridging between formal and informal learning contexts, including the need for a comprehensive and practical model to guide this effort; (2) a design-based research methodology for developing the model; and (3) the resulting 4 × 4-bridging model. We argue that this model can help educators, engaged in formal and informal learning, to develop practical and productive partnerships with each other.