UCA’s Mashburn Center for Learning has been awarded $325,000 grant by the Arkansas Department of Education.
The 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.
“When you consider that this is the fifth award from the ADE totaling more than $2 million 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.
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.
“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,’ said Dr. Mark Cooper, professor in the Department of Early Childhood and Special Education (ECSE) and director of the Mashburn Center for Learning. “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 building 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.