MAGNOLIA – For the third consecutive year, the United States Department of Education has recognized Southern Arkansas University’s Southwest-B Educational Renewal Zone as a model for the nation for how the federal Math Science Partnership grants are designed, administered and evaluated.
“Unlike years in the past, grants are now performance based, not compliance based,” said Dr. Roger Guevara, SAU’s ERZ program director. “This is an important distinction because with compliance, there was little follow-up and no accountability of how the grants were measured.”
The Arkansas Capacity Building Science Partnership paired 23 secondary science teachers in the region with two professors from Southern Arkansas University. Both professors were instrumental in leading the regional science teachers to increase content knowledge and approaches on how to best deliver instruction at the classroom level. In an innovative twist, SAU partnered with South Central Service Cooperative in Camden to provide compressed interactive video to reach teachers in Fouke, Hope and Prescott as a means to bring these science educators together electronically for 10 days.
The rigorous evaluation model called for the participants to be pre- and post-tested after a year to objectively measure their mastery of the material. The results showed a significant advantage in SAU’s program compared to other Math Science Partnership grants administered by various universities across the state. According to the Southwest-B ERZ Annual Report, “The Arkansas Capacity Building Science Partnership performed 170 percent better in the mean effect rate than the average remaining science grants.”
When reviewing the performance of other participants across the state, Guevara pointed out that another strength with the partnership at SAU is that teachers were not tested just weeks or months after being introduced to the material, but a full year later, which he said he believes shows they really had retained the material learned. What this means for the students in the classrooms of the participating teachers, is that they will be exposed to new concepts that will hopefully stay with them as well, Guevara said. For teachers, the benefit of participation in the program is a $1,050 per year stipend or six hours of graduate credit through the SAU School of Graduate Studies.
Guevara said based on the success of the past, the goal is to continue to use data driven decision making in its approach to designing high performance professional development and corresponding meticulous evaluation process.
“We were validated on a number of fronts. The data shows we did great on the federal level and the state level-but most importantly, it shows us that the teachers and student performance indicated the professional development is being extremely well received.”
Guevara presented the results of the Arkansas Capacity Building Science Partnership at the 2010 Math Science Partnership National Conference in New Orleans.
For more information on the partnership, or to find out how SAU could help local schools, contact Guevara at rcguevara@saumag.edu or call him directly at 870-235-5014.
