Center for Excellence in Teaching

The Center commenced operation in the 2011 summer semester, and is engaged in implementing and assimilating new and existing systems, including training and support for the academic staff members in all the teaching units and in the central library. The Center addresses inquiries and queries by the academic faculty relating to adoption and ongoing use of technological systems, such as: the learning portal, wiki system (wiki@colman), the new exam scrambling system and more, and provides solutions in pedagogic and technological fields.

 The Center is staffed 5 days a week by veteran members of staff at COMAS with extensive experience in training and support for teaching technologies and their use and assimilation.

 For additional information, please contact:

segeltech@hdq.colman.ac.il 

Tel.: +972-3-9635717

Maintaining a high level of teaching excellence is a central value at COMAS. The college's administration, led by the Center for Excellence in Teaching, continually endeavors to improve and raise the quality level of teaching. In the 2009-10 academic year, COMAS commenced a tradition of honoring lecturers, researchers and members of staff that have excelled in a special tribute ceremony.

The Center offers workshops dealing with various aspects related to academic teaching, that are intended for a variety of academic faculty members. The Center offers four types of workshops:

Primary workshops
As part of COMAS' policy aimed at efficient and effective assimilation of lecturers, and in light of COMAS' vision that emphasizes high quality teaching and teaching excellence, the Center conducts a series of encounters entitled Primary Workshops for Teaching Excellence.

Teaching Enhancement Workshops
Teaching Enhancement workshops are intended for all active members of the academic teaching staff at COMAS. These workshops deal with improving the quality of teaching in the classroom, preparing the syllabus, writing exams and grading exams and papers, managing communications in the classroom and more.

Designated In-House Workshops
The Center conducts designated workshops that are customized to specified needs defined by various teaching units.

Technological Workshops
Workshop topics include preparing presentations for teaching and for conferences, use of the learning portal and acquiring basic skills in Office and other applications.

Moodle - Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment
A system for computerized teaching management designed to enable creation of online and interactive courses. The system enables construction of virtual courses at various levels, and is based on open source technology (under the GNU - General Public License).

 Moodle also includes a range of tools and activities enabling creation of rich course content, such as: tasks, discussion groups, questionnaires, forums, quizzes and more.

Moodle supports dozens of languages, including Hebrew, English, Arabic and Russian, and has a diverse international community of users in a variety of academic institutions in Israel and overseas (approx. 212 countries).

In order to familiarize themselves with the system, leverage teaching capabilities and upgrade courses, the Center has put at the disposal of academic staff members the Center for the Promotion of Technologies in Teaching – SegelTech Center, designed to assist faculty members in creating courses using the system from both the technological and pedagogic points of view.

The Center for Excellence in Teaching encourages dialog relating to teaching between members of the academic faculty, while raising issues and discussing insights related to the core of their teaching work at COMAS.

Following are several projects initiated by the Center:

Master Mind
Master Mind group is an empowering framework for people of quality who have a common denominator, while differing in fields, with the idea behind the idea being that people that help one another succeed help themselves succeed. These encounters are high in energy, and multiply the participants' power of thought outside the box, one for the benefit of the other. They set ideas on fire by providing feedback and brainstorming about new ideas for business, careers and life.

Teaching Club
The Center for Excellence in Teaching has established a new forum entitled Teaching Club, whose goal is to stimulate an academic dialog about teaching, and to highlight issues and insights related to the core work done at COMAS. Forum meetings are held in a format similar to a departmental seminar, with 3 - 4 meetings a year, and speakers from among COMAS' academic staff. This framework also affords an opportunity for encounters between staff members from different units, and enables them to get acquainted and inspire one another.

We view these meetings dealing with teaching subjects as being of great importance, and enabling fruitful dialog and exchange of insights between members of the teaching staff in the different units.