CONWAY -- The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation has formally established an agreement with the Mashburn Center for Learning to write three comprehensive white papers that examine what is working in Arkansas to increase graduation rates at two-year colleges, four-year universities, and high schools.

A fourth comprehensive white paper will focus on improving STEM education in Arkansas, with specific focus on the impact of STEM education on graduation rates. The foundation has asked the Mashburn team, Drs. Mark Cooper, Patty Kohler-Evans, and Lisa Daniels and Ms. Renee Calhoon, to investigate interventions that impact hard to retain students and marginalized populations attending two-year colleges or four-year universities, students attending high-poverty high schools, and low income, minority, and rural students participating in STEM education.

The foundation has instituted a multi-year strategic plan that builds on the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation's 35 year history of grant-making. The multi-year strategic plan is called Moving the Needle. The ultimate goal of the foundation is to move from the nation's bottom five in economic and education indicators to one of the nation's highest ranking states. Dr. Cooper, director of the Mashburn Center for Learning, finds that the WR Foundations mission and the Mashburn Center for Learning mission is completely aligned.

"The WRF has a history for helping. They continue to obligate the use of its resources to understand not only the problems contributing to educational challenges, but also the solutions necessary to eliminate those challenges,” Cooper said. "When you consider the significance of this comprehensive agenda outlined by WRF’s funding mission, it is clear that the Mashburn Center team has a very significant responsibility to Arkansas educators, policy-makers, state department stakeholders, legislators, and especially the recipients of education – the students."

The Mashburn Center for Learning team is very excited to participate in this strategic alliance with WRF due to the special focus on improving education for challenged learners attending high schools, two-year-colleges, and four-year institutions.

 “We will make every effort to describe practices we believe contribute to successful interventions that appear effective for retaining students and enhancing their progression toward successful completion of programs of study within high schools, vocational schools, and colleges,” said Dr. Daniels, associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at UCA. "Such efforts shall be most important considering Arkansas’ rank as 50th in the rate of college completers."

In addition to the on-campus UCA recruiting events such as Bear Facts and Presidential Scholars Days, the College of Education (COE) faculty have been involved with almost 20 additional regional or state educator recruiting events and more than 40 P-12 individual school or school district recruitment visits.  Educator recruitment events include the Arkansas Education Association and the Arkansas Curriculum Conferences in Little Rock, and the Council for Exceptional Children Conference in Hot Springs.  The College of Education faculty also recruited at the “Becoming a Teacher in Arkansas” recruitment event in Little Rock sponsored by the Arkansas Department of Education. 

COE Faculty attended community college events or classes to recruit at Pulaski Technical College and the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton.  In addition, faculty presented recruitment materials at the Little Rock College Night, the Faulkner County Teacher Breakfast and Education Fair, and the Smokey Emerson Concert on campus to enhance Latino recruitment and outreach. 

College of Education faculty have traveled to schools in Faulkner County, Pulaski County, Conway County, and other school districts around the state to take recruitment brochures and to talk with P-12 faculty about education graduate programs offered at UCA.  The college faculty have also been working with Academic Outreach and Extended Programs to send email blasts and fliers to P-12 schools and districts.

Building Capacity + Building Sustainability = A Successful Intervention

On November 8, 2010, Dr. Mark Cooper and Ms. Renee Calhoon with the UCA College of Education Mashburn Center for Learning provided an Arkansas Adolescent Literacy Intervention (AALI) Leadership Summit at the Conway Hilton Garden Inn.  Attendees included Arkansas school district assistant superintendents, building principals, instructional facilitators, classroom teachers, and AALI Professional Developers.  Participants were provided opportunities to learn from one another through AALI school presentations and table talk activities. 

Additionally, school participants strategically planned with AALI Professional Developers designing the implementation of a successful intervention by utilizing a professional development model.  The model guides schools through the process titled Building Capacity + Building Sustainability = A Successful Intervention.  At the close of the one-day summit, participants deemed the day’s work as highly successful; they suggested holding another summit in the near future for advanced professional development.  School district personnel left the summit with detailed plans of action for implementing AALI, building capacity within their own schools, and taking necessary action steps for sustaining their newly designed intervention plans. 

For more information about the AALI Leadership Summit, contact Renee Calhoon at 501.269.9480 or kcalhoon@uca.edu.

Dr. Mary Mosley, Associate Professor in the Department of Early Childhood/Special Education, will sponsor two of her UCA graduate students to present with her at the Arkansas Reading Association’s annual conference.  The annual conference is hosted by the Arkansas Literacy Teachers Educators (ALTE) and will be held on November 18, 2010, in Little Rock.  While serving as president of ALTE, Dr. Mosley initiated the practice of Arkansas university faculty sponsoring one or two of their graduate students to present at their state reading conference.  A portion of the annual ALTE dues are dedicated to funding the one day conference registration fees for sponsored graduate students.  Faculty from all Arkansas universities are encouraged to sponsor graduate students to present research findings on timely topics at the annual reading conference.  UCA graduate students presenting at the 2010 Arkansas Reading Association annual conference include Melinda Francis, who will talk about Literature Circles, and Sarah Graham, who will address Writing Instruction and New Literacies.  Congratulations to Melinda and Sarah for representing the UCA College of Education.

Parents of English Language Learners (ELL) are participating in the second semester of a pilot project sponsored by the UCA College of Education Reading Success Center.  The Director of the Center, Dr. Mary Mosley, received a grant from the Faulkner County Literacy Council to obtain electronic materials and programs to assist parents of ELL improve their English literacy while their children are participating in weekly literacy instruction.  Weekly literacy instruction is provided by College of Education graduate student clinicians at the COE Reading Success Center.

Funds from this grant have been used to purchase Leap Pads among other reading/writing materials.  On the Leap Pads, parents and their children start by recording their responses to questions followed by listening to the correct answers both in English and Spanish.  Parents attend their children's sessions to observe reading instruction and the teaching support modeled by the clinicians.  Then Dr. Mosley and the parents meet briefly after the children's sessions to discuss the instruction provided each child, answer parents' question, address concerns, and extend practices.  The goals are to promote competence and confidence for parents to enhance their children’s literacy at home and to assist clearer communication with children’s classroom teachers and medical providers.  This semester three families have been involved in the ELL pilot program; faculty and students are refining their program as they prepare to add more parents next semester.

During the 2010 fall semester, Dr. Cheryl Wiedmaier and Ms. Brenda Linn, two faculty in the UCA, College of Education, Department of Teaching and Learning, hosted a series of seminars designed specifically for business education teachers and teacher candidates called Building Strong Business Education Programs in the 21st Century.  Nine teacher candidates and practicing teachers attended the seminar traveling across Arkansas from locations as close as Conway to as far away as Newport.  The evening began with dinner provided by the Department of Teaching and Learning followed by the first seminar.  This seminar focused on Setting up a Mobile Classroom addressing issues including textbook adoptions, textbook orders, teacher resources, student organization (FBLA) activities, foundation scholarships, and other practical information.  This seminar also investigated program completers, site visits, Perkins funding, and other services available through an Educational Cooperative.  Various professionals in their fields presented information relevant to their work to an audience that included undergraduate business teacher education candidates, graduate business education teacher candidates enrolled in the Master of Art in Teaching program, novice business education teachers, and veteran business education teachers.

A second seminar will be held on Monday, November 15, when the topics will include preparing for the Praxis III, programs of study, program approval process, technology standards, training requirements, state curriculum frameworks, and end-of-course testing.  Dr. Tammy Benson, along with the faculty and staff in the Department of Teaching and Learning, extend their appreciation to the outstanding contributions these two faculty are making as they lead the way for practicing business education teachers and business education teacher candidates.

UCA’s Mashburn Center for Learning has been awarded $325,000 in external funding by the Arkansas Department of Education. This grant will continue funding the Arkansas Adolescent Literacy Intervention designed to increase capacity within the state of Arkansas to improve academic outcomes for students at-risk for school failure. There are two primary strategies designed to achieve the major outcome. First, the intervention program is designed to build teacher capacity for demonstrating mastery in the application of the Strategic Instruction Model methodologies. Second, the intervention promotes increased sustainability and scalability of the high quality, research-based instructional strategies used by the participating district teaching teams. “When you consider that this is the fifth award from the ADE totaling more than $2,000,000.00, it is clear that the Mashburn Center for Learning has established itself as a change agent and leader in preparing teacher teams to work more effectively with struggling adolescent learners,” said Dr. Diana Pounder, Dean of the College of Education. Dr. Mark Cooper, Professor in the Department of Early Childhood and Special Education and Director of the Mashburn Center for Learning states, “The Mashburn team has developed its expertise on intervention implementation the hard way. School-based interventions come and go, especially with a reliance on hit and run professional development  of teachers. We have created a sustainability model designed to not only build capacity, but also to sustain the capacity built.”  The success of the Mashburn Center for Learning is grounded on  the principle of sustainable capacity for professional development and improvement.  Dr. Patty Kohler-Evans, Associate Professor in ECSE and Ms. Renee Calhoon, the Coordinator of Teacher/Administrator Development for the ADE grant are integral to the Center’s success. Both Mashburn team members insist that the development of a sustainability plan can no longer be a neglected element in education reform. The Mashburn Center for Learning has become a leader on high quality professional development and instructional intervention in Arkansas.   

Twenty UCA education faculty were trained by The Learning Institute (TLI) to be able to incorporate TLI assessment measures into their teacher/administrator coursework.  The Learning Institute is a private company that assists school districts with aligning curriculum, teaching and assessing curriculum, reviewing formative student assessment data, and taking action to improve student learning and instruction based on assessment data.  TLI also provides mathematics and literacy developmental assessments which help to determine strengths and weaknesses in curriculum and instruction. The Institute provides a variety of reporting services so that teachers and administrators can teach to the needs of the students.  Quentin Suffren, Chief Academic Officer of TLI, and Jessica Allen, Professional Development Specialist, provided the five-hour training and explained the TLI web portal procedures, report navigation, and historical data retrieval for Arkansas public schools.  This training opportunity will enhance assessment courses in UCA’s educator preparation programs.

The site visit for the external program review of the College Student Personnel Services and Administration (CSPA) program in Leadership Studies at the University of Central Arkansas was held Monday, February 1, 2010.  Prior to the on-site visit, two external reviewers were provided more than 150 pages of documentation on the program. Specifically, this self study was designed to illustrate how successfully the program and faculty met the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board Existing Program Review criteria adopted in October 2008. The policy requires that an internal review (self-study) by institutions, and an external review by consultants, occur every 7-10 years.

The two external reviewers identified for the self-study were Dr. Tony W. Cawthon, Clemson University, and Dr. Maureen Wilson, Bowling Green State University. Prior to the on-site visit, both individuals reviewed the AHECB guidelines, the department’s self study document, and they identified issues and questions to be used in the evaluation process. On Monday, February 1, 2010, Dr. Cawthon spent the day with various constituent groups including current and former students, administrators, faculty, and professional staff from the Division of Student Affairs.

Listed below are a few excerpts from Dr. Cawthon’s and Dr. Wilson’s report:

Strengths:  Current students, alumni and collaborative partners consistently throughout the day spoke to the strength of the curriculum. The breadth of this curriculum emphasis (counseling and administration courses) enhances the likelihood that the program will be able to compete nationally.

All constituent groups identified the program faculty as the “glue” of the program. They were reported to be content experts, student—centered, committed to outstanding teaching and instruction, quality research and scholarship, and service.

After one day, I saw that the program not only speaks about creating personal relationships with students, but their behavior reflects this philosophy.  Graduates of the program are very successful in achieving jobs in student affairs, with 88% getting a job and 86% employed three years out from graduation.

Recommendations: (1) addition of at least one faculty position; (2) more library resources; (3) review existing admissions criteria, especially the GPA and GRE requirements; (4) review the number of hours awarded for thesis credit; (5) increase the number of graduate assistantships; and (6) improve communication and collaboration between program and the Division of Student Affairs.

The CSPA faculty has responded to the recommendations with a report that addresses each recommendation.

It is with great pleasure that we announce the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE) has recently approved an Arkansas affiliate. The newly formed Arkansas Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (AAECTE) was organized by Drs. Candice Barnes and Rene Crow, along with Dr. Sara Davis from University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. The focus and vision of this organization is to: build strength among early childhood teacher educators in the state, promote professional development and growth among the membership, provide a forum to discuss and act upon challenges facing the early childhood community, and be a strong voice for early childhood education in the state of Arkansas and beyond. If you are interested in learning more about AAECTE, please contact Dr. Candice Barnes at cbarnes@uca.edu.

 Save the Date! AAECTE is also planning to hold its first meeting January 20, 2011. More information is forthcoming.

Members of UCA’s Teachers United, a recognized student organization in the College of Education, recently answered a call for help from Conway Public Schools and the Conway 2012 Committee.   After hosting Jan Spann, a 2012 Committee member, as a guest speaker for the September Teachers United meeting in Mashburn Hall, several UCA students volunteered to help the committee and school district generate support for the passing of a millage increase that will fund renovation of Conway High School West and support construction projects to benefit Conway students.  Volunteers distributed informational fliers at Conway athletic events and called registered voters to encourage support of the millage increase, which passed on September 21st.  The relationship between UCA’s College of Education and Conway Public Schools has a long history of mutually beneficial cooperation.  Thank you Teachers United members for your continuation of this tradition:  Haley White, Lynzie Lamb, Casey Hoanzl, and Ashley Westerman.

UCA’s College of Education received $8,250 from the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) Office of Teacher Quality to support 45 area school teachers who are candidates for National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) Certification, an advanced teaching credential that complements a state-issued teaching license. This grant coupled with a $20,000.00 grant directly from NBPTS is awarded to recruit teachers in high need schools to seek NBPTS certification. The UCA NBPTS Candidate Support Center has received more than $150,000 in state and federal support since 2002 and has supported the successful Board Certification of more than 300 teachers.  Dr. Carolyn Williams has obtained funding for the program for many years, and administers the program for the College of Education. 

The UCA NBPTS Candidate Support Center offers intensive professional development sessions over eight months. The on-site support is augmented by electronic mentoring and an overnight retreat for teacher candidates and their mentors. Both on-site and electronic mentoring sessions are provided by National Board Certified Teachers (NBCT) and providers. 

National Board Certification is an advanced teaching credential that complements, but does not replace, a state’s teaching license. Candidates achieve National Board Certification upon successful completion of a voluntary assessment program designed to recognize effective and accomplished teachers who meet high standards based on what teachers should know and be able to do. National Board Certification is available nationwide for most preK–12 teachers. It is a 10-part performance assessment to include video portfolios, analysis of classroom practice and evaluation of content knowledge. The assessments are reviewed by trained teachers in their certificate areas.  National Board Certification for Principals, currently in development, is designed to develop, recognize and retain accomplished principals.  Theory into Practice, a peer-reviewed journal hosted by The Ohio State University, recently released a special issue entitled “Accomplished Teaching as a Professional Resource.” The issue highlights National Board Certified Teachers as a resource for improving student learning and achievement. More than 82,000 teachers and school counselors nationwide have achieved National Board Certification. There are 1,399 Board Certified teachers in the state of Arkansas.

The College of Education Technology Committee is offering a series of technology training sessions for faculty, staff, graduate assistants, and work study students.  The training sessions are designed to enhance individuals’ technological skills, increase the efficiency of faculty, departments, the college, and the Professional Education Unit, and foster a technology friendly environment. The training is divided into two categories:  1) traditional technologies and 2) online technologies.

Traditional technology training offers opportunities for improvement in the use of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  A session has been offered on the resources available in the Technology Learning Center.  Other sessions will target classroom technology utilization (i.e., video projectors, document cameras, and SMART Board technology).

Renee Le Beau Ford (Torreyson Library) is hosting a session on how to effectively utilize library resources for online teaching and learning.  In addition, a forum will be offered on synchronous vs. asynchronous online teaching and learning environments.  Tonya McKinney will host a session on the use of Tegrity for video capture and video streaming in the online classroom.  Faculty can schedule one-on-one training with Dr. Stephanie Huffman on the use of Centra and Blackboard.

Additional training will be offered in the Spring 2011 semester.