and this enables teachers to understand in which part of their course students are experiencing the most
difficulties and which parts are easy.
We note that the number of students using internet courses and booklets (such as "Math by Mail"), preferring
them to hard copy assignments and booklets, increases over time, which suggest that students have interest in
such E-Learning techniques. Last year when we implemented the program in Moodle only 50% of the
participants used the internet course and booklets, while this year 90% are using the online booklets. Next
school year we intend the program to be a fully online program without any hardcopy booklets. Overall, the
perception of students of web-based homework testing was very positive. We implemented a similar Moodle
course in Science, “Science by mail”, with similar results.
Evaluating MBM environment: MBM course of 2010-2011
The evaluation was a short-term assessment conducted at the end of the period in July 2011. It was carried out
in the course of the end of year participant conferences ("treasure hunts"). During the conference:
1 Questionnaires were distributed among the children (119 questionnaires were received from MBM
participants).
2 16 parents were interviewed.
3 17 teachers were interviewed.
4 Focus groups were set up and conversations with children were conducted
Questionnaires were distributed to all the children we were able to reach, and most of them filled in and returned
the questionnaires. Parents and teachers were selected at random – based on accessibility and the time we had
available to us. It should be noted that the teachers and parents interviewed were among those who came to the
conference and thus constitute a sample of parents who are involved in the program in some way or another.
The findings derived from student questionnaires and from the interviews with parents and teachers.
Student, parent and teacher satisfaction indicate a high level of satisfaction. The students liked the program and
its contents to a very large extent. They liked the level of organization to a large extent. Children's satisfaction
with the program found expression in their almost universal willingness to recommend the program to others
and their almost universal willingness to remain enrolled in the program. Parents and teachers felt that the
program is an enriching and innovative one and has a good reputation in general. Many of the teachers have
been acquainted with the program for some years and have chosen to continue their involvement with it because
of its quality. Teachers commented that the program provides a response to the needs of a unique group of
children as shown in Figure 6a.
The essence of the program as perceived by the children is shown in Figure 6b. The children experienced the
program from two almost equal perspectives - they perceived it both as fun, and as educational and enriching - a
combination of fun, information and interest in both programs. It seems that the program was able to combine a
fun experience with the gaining of interesting knowledge. 6th grade MBM students said: "It is challenging
because it is hard. It is not something mundane like 15 times 16… there are questions of a different sortquestions
that are, let's say, surprising". Other children emphasized the innovative aspects of MBM and that the
learning was meaningful rather than technical: "I learned about things that I did not even know existed. Had you
asked me who Fibonacci was, I would have said he was an artist, I had no idea what operators were". "If
someone were to just tell me to write up a list of Fibonacci numbers, I suppose I might not remember how to do
that, but if I were to get the first four numbers in the series and told to continue the series, I'd remember what to
do…"
Figure 6a: Average responses to the question
– 'Here are a number of faces. On each row,
select the face that best describes your feeling
towards each of the following items'. Scale of
1-5.
Figure 6b: Distribution of student responses
to an open question: "For me, MBM is…"
% of students indicating each of the
responses