{"id":2962,"date":"2013-07-25T08:22:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T13:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/?p=2962"},"modified":"2013-09-10T10:16:56","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T15:16:56","slug":"sau-erz-uses-federal-grant-funds-for-sw-ark-teacher-improvement-seminar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/2013\/sau-erz-uses-federal-grant-funds-for-sw-ark-teacher-improvement-seminar\/","title":{"rendered":"SAU ERZ uses federal grant funds for SW Ark. teacher improvement seminar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dr.<\/a>Southern Arkansas University recently hosted a two-week\u00a0Summer Institute\u00a0to strengthen teaching capabilities for algebra and physical science teachers from 14 school districts across Southwest Arkansas.<\/p>\n

Dr. Roger Guevara of the SAU Educational Renewal Zone was the Project Director on a federal No Child Left Behind \u2013 Improving Teacher Quality\u00a0grant application administered though the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.\u00a0More than $60,000 was awarded to SAU in order to implement the innovative training program, “SAU Math Science Common Core Integration Project.”<\/p>\n

More\u00a0than 25\u00a0math and science teachers\u00a0attended the two-week seminar at the SAU STEM Center for K-12 Professional Development\u00a0in late June and early July. Dr. Scott White and Stephanie Baxter of SAU\u2019s College of Science and Technology were the faculty providing the instruction along with Susan Johnson, the STEM Center’s Science Specialist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project used an innovative, blended approach to integrate Physical Science with Algebra I under the\u00a0real world banner of forensics. These concepts were carefully selected based on a teacher needs assessment indicating more direct professional development was need to address\u00a0incorporating Common Core across academic disciplines and to facilitate math and science integration.\u201d said Guevara.<\/p>\n

Prescott Superintendent Robert Poole shared his support for the project with a letter to the ADHE as a part of the grant proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur familiarity with Dr. Guevara and the SAU ERZ makes this grant project a natural extension to our current and on-going activities,\u201d said Poole. \u201cI most certainly support this grant initiative to strengthen our teachers in math and science content knowledge as well as in the integration of the Common Core State Standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Southwest Arkansas has long wrestled with obtaining premium educational services to its geographically isolated, rural school districts. This training opportunity made possible by the federal grant\u00a0goes a long way in shaping instruction geared towards new\u00a021st century demands.\u00a0\u00a0The Education Renewal Zones were created in Arkansas to identify and implement educational and management strategies designed specifically to improve public school performance and student academic achievement throughout the state of Arkansas.<\/p>\n

Through\u00a0quarterly meetings of the SAU ERZ Advisory Council, analysis of state and regional\u00a0state benchmark\u00a0scores, and particularly the results of a needs assessment specifically for Algebra I and Physical Science in the Southwest Arkansas, the members of the SAU ERZ Advisory Council identified a universal\u00a0desire to build expertise at the local level in order to\u00a0build capacity in Common Core mathematics and Next Generation Science Standards\u00a0throughout the southwest region of Arkansas.<\/p>\n

The SAU ERZ coordinated this SAU Math Science Common Core Integration Project among SAU’s College of Science and Technology, the College of Education, SAU STEM Center, and several public school districts including those located in Ashdown, Prescott, Lafayette, Fouke, Foreman, Genoa Central, Lafayette, Magnolia, Stephens, and Texarkana, plus one private school-Columbia Christian School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southern Arkansas University recently hosted a two-week\u00a0Summer Institute\u00a0to strengthen teaching capabilities for algebra and physical science teachers from 14 school districts across Southwest Arkansas. Dr. Roger Guevara of the SAU Educational Renewal Zone was the Project Director on a federal No Child Left Behind \u2013 Improving Teacher Quality\u00a0grant application administered though the Arkansas Department of… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":2964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[181,7753],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"category-homepage","9":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}