UVEI's Great Teaching Project Awarded $120,000 Grant
The Upper Valley Educators Institute has been awarded $120,000 from The Educational Foundation of America in support of its Great Teaching Project to continue improving the climate in which teachers work and students learn. The grant will fund three objectives: mentoring new teachers in the Newport School district and recent UVEI graduates, expanding a competency-based principal training program, and enhancing UVEI's web-based home page for teacher interns and aspiring principals.
Working with the Newport School District, EFA grant funds provide training and consultation to teacher mentors with the long-range goal of creating a model that the district will support once the grant expires in 2010. "The District sees this as an opportunity to use recently retired master teachers to mentor, support, and help us retain new teachers in Newport," states Newport Superintendent Marilyn Brannigan, "I am delighted to join with UVEI on this important collaboration."
The grant also allows UVEI to expand its competency-based principal training program. The program requires a one-year practicum, supplemented by workshops and seminars that bring together groups of aspiring principals and mentor principals. In 2007, UVEI graduated six principals. The grant calls for expansion of the program in Vermont. "Our principal program prepares inspiring professionals to lead in our schools. It allows great teachers and counselors to move into positions of leadership without losing touch with teaching and learning," states Shirley Richardson, who directs the program at UVEI. Research to compare UVEI's competency-based model with conventional leadership training programs will be conducted in collaboration with the University of Vermont.
A small portion of the grant will go to support the further development of UVEI's web-based home page for both teacher interns and aspiring principals. UVEI believes that enhanced on-line communication will foster peer-to-peer learning, while it gives UVEI the ability to post best practice techniques through the use of video clips and written materials.
