Education Renewal Zone

Advisory Board Meeting

September 9, 2014

10:30 a.m.- 12:30 p.m.

General updates and upcoming events

-Arkansas Workforce Summit, Little Rock, September 23

  • Educators are encouraged to attend this one-day event designed to promote workforce development in Arkansas.

-National Manufacturing Day, October 3

  • Local Chambers of Commerce are interested in partnering with schools on this day to showcase high-tech manufacturing in Northwest Arkansas. The ERZ will coordinate these efforts and invite district administrators, high school principals,and high school counselors to attend.

-NW Arkansas P-20 Task Force, November 12, 9:30-11:00 am, NWAESC

  • The focus of this meeting will be workforce development and will include a presentation on regional job needs from the NWA Council.

-Tutoring opportunities

  • UA students are interested in volunteering as tutors. Typically, these students are from education or STEM backgrounds. Before being placed in a school, they are interviewed by the ERZ office and complete a background check.
  • Please complete this form with the days and times you have available for tutoring if you are interested.

Digital Learning Partnership

-UA Global Campus is interested in partnering with local schools to create digital courses that high schools could use for free.

-There is a proposal to recruit 3-5 teachers from local districts to create 3-5 courses over the summer for online delivery. Teachers would receive a stipend.

-Courses would be accessible through a variety of online delivery platforms.

-The Office for Innovation in Education is preparing to send a survey to schools statewide to gauge interest in their project and determine which courses would be best to be developed.

-UA Global Campus Digital Learning will host a Digital Learning Show and Tell on October 7 from 11:30-4:30pm at the UA Global Campus in Rogers. They are looking for schools and other organizations to share about what they are already doing to meet digital learning needs and to bring information about their future needs for discussion.Please e-mail Elizabeth if you would like more information.

Adopt-A-Classroom

-Adopt-A-Classroom recruitment is currently underway. Faculty volunteers will complete training in the next week and then the ERZ will send out the flyer to recruit K-12 teacher participants.

-Excellent feedback received from the first two cohorts of participants.

  • 100% agree or strongly agree that Adopt-A-Classroom achieves it purpose of promoting collaboration opportunities for UA faculty and K-12 teachers.
  • 94% would like to participate again and 97% would recommend to a colleague.

Future Teacher’s Day, October 28

-The ERZ would like to reach more students interested in STEM fields for this event. Advisory Board members suggested contacting AP Math and Science teachers as well as EAST facilitators to ask them to reach out to students directly.

-ERZ will include a presentation of a STEM lesson for all Future Teacher’s Day attendees to pique their interest of teaching STEM.

-Due to the new special education undergraduate license, special education will also be a focus for the first time.

-Advisory Board members suggested putting together a PowerPoint presentation showing positive aspects of the teaching profession that schools could show in cafeterias, auditoriums, etc.

E.Y.E. to the Future

-Results from E.Y.E. to the Future evaluation survey can be viewed here

-All videos from sessions can be viewed here

  • Schools are especially encouraged to utilize the video “How has Common Core State Standards Impacted NWA Classrooms.” This video features two local educators giving excellent examples of the positive impact CCSS has had on their math classrooms.

-Plans are underway for E.Y.E. to the Future in June 2015 to focus on workforce development.

Professional development opportunities

-Understanding by Design workshops featuring Allison Zmuda and Jay McTighe

  • Four day series for teams from a district or school
  • Day 1: October 23 at NWAESC
  • View more information here(download the three page flyer) and register on NWAESC website

-Opinion/Argumentative Writing Professional Development through NWA Writing Project

  • Local teacher fellows developed free professional development in opinion and argumentative writing to support CCSS implementation. Sample units for grades 1, 3, 7, 8, 11, and 12 are available on-line through this link.
  • Several options are available ranging from one-hour to full-day sessions. View brochure for more information.

ERZ Advisory Board Meetings for 2014-15

-November 18, 10:30 a.m.

-February 18, 10:30 a.m.