The research relates to a joint management between gifted students and teachers in the course “Teaching for Thinking” in the "Excellent Students program" at Sakhnin College for Teacher Education. The students were full partners in the course management which included: planning, setting the objectives and schedule, and choosing the teaching and evaluation methods. These components changed from one meeting to another according to the students' way of learning and the reflective discussion which took place at the end of each session. This created a dynamic syllabus. Unlike other courses in the college, where the syllabi are fixed, the syllabus of this course had gone through some changes during the course. The research objective was to check the joint management of students and lecturers in the course which dealt with teaching for thinking and the influence of a process accompanied by reflection on the motivation of the participants and on the students' reflective thinking. The research population included two lecturers who deal with the field of thinking and the gifted students in the “Excellent Students program”.
The theoretical basis of the content was based on theories of curriculum, reflection and motivation. Findings from quantitative and qualitative analyses of motivation questionnaires and reflection pages, at the beginning and end of the course, will be presented in the conference.
The findings show a clear increase in the inner motivation of the students at the end of the course in comparison to the beginning. The dynamic nature of the course caused the increase of the students' motivation.
The reflection analysis shows that the motive of the students in the course is their experience in sharing full partnership in determining the course content, teaching methods and assessment methods.
The research suggests adopting a joint management approach as an alternative method in teachers training.