The Spiral Internal Laboratory at Sakhnin College, Israel: PD for education supervisors, mentors and students

Nabil Assadi, Muhammad Ibdah, Seham Hamza and Tareq Murad
Sakhnin Academic College for Teacher Education, Israel

This study's primary aim was to assess the role of Sakhnin College's internal laboratory, known as "Spiral", in the professional development of educational supervisors within learning communities. Additionally, it sought to determine the extent of Spiral's contribution to the professional growth of these supervisors and explore whether there were any significant differences based on variables such as gender, age, and teaching subject specialisation. Utilising a descriptive approach and a questionnaire, data collected from 32 expert, state licensed educational supervisors revealed that the laboratory played a significant role in enhancing the professional development of educational supervisors. Notably, the sub-field "development of pedagogical tools and products" garnered the highest score while "cooperative teaching in pairs" scored the lowest. Our study found no statistically significant differences among respondents based on gender, age, or specialisation. Recommendations and suggestions based on our findings are offered.
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Authors: Dr Nabil Assadi (corresponding author) is a professor of Methods of Teaching Mathematics, Mathematics Pedagogical instructor, and a teacher councillor at Sakhnin College for Teacher Education, Israel. He obtained his PhD from University Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi, Romania. He specialises in research on educational administration, methods of teaching, and the implementation of advanced software in the teaching of mathematics. He has conducted studies in Israel and Europe and in many other cross-national contexts. His research focuses broadly on improving the school environment, procuring more serious parents' involvement, and placing greater attention on special education. He is also an expert on GeoGebra mathematics software, TPACK research, and distance learning pedagogies. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2036-1121 Email: nabilgood1@sakhnin.ac.il Dr Muhammad Ibdah completed his BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in the Department of Life Sciences at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. In his masters degree, he investigated the relationship between the carbon source and the viscosity and permeability of the membrane in the bacterium E. coli. In his PhD he studied the relationship between the structure and sequence of the amino acids and including sensitivity to herbicides of the AHAS enzyme essential for the synthesis of branched-chain amino acids in bacteria and plants. In parallel to this research he has been teaching biology in a high school. Throughout the last 30 years he has been involved in teacher education. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4958-9955 Email: imuh@sakhnin.ac.il Dr Seham Hamza is a lecturer in the Department of Sciences at Sakhnin College, coordinator of the Academia Community in the Pedagogical Training Department at the college. She graduated with a bachelor degree in chemistry from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Hebrew University, and a masters degree and PhD at the University of Haifa in the field of geochemistry, specifically spectroscopy as a tool for monitoring chemical and physical properties of ash after burning. She has published articles in the field of heat sources and recently focused on the field of professional learning community of pedagogical instructors. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5346-5157 Email: seham_l@hotmail.com Dr Tareq Murad served as an EFL teacher in different high schools in Israel from 1990-2012, and is currently is a senior lecturer in linguistic courses and teaching instructions in the Department of English Teaching at Sakhnin College since 2005. He is also the head of the pedagogical supervision and teachers' training department in the College. He has a BA in English Linguistics from Ben-Gurion University, MA in Linguistics from Haifa University and PhD in English Curriculum and teaching instructions from Yarmouk University. His research interests include TESOL, clinical training in teacher education, and cross-cultural pragmatics. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4669-8411 Email: tarenal22@sakhnin.ac.il Please cite as: Assadi, N., Ibdah, M., Hamza, S. & Murad, T. (2024). The Spiral Internal Laboratory at Sakhnin College, Israel: PD for education supervisors, mentors and students. Issues in Educational Research, 34(3), 825-847. http://www.iier.org.au/iier34/assadi.pdf