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Partners In Learning is a non-profit group directed by Dr. Douglas Brooks, a Full Professor in the School of Education Health and Society at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The mission of Partners In Learning is to provide web-based professional development to school districts administrators and faculty members in areas of technology integration, continuous school improvement, and grant writing. One feature of Partners In Learning is the Performance Pyramid. The Performance Pyramid is a web-based model for continuous improvement that features "Resource Domains" that directly relate to improved student achievement gains on state mandated proficiency tests. The content for the Performance Pyramid is re-evaluated every semester by senior students in Dr. Brooks' Miami Capstone class. Seniors in the class become "Research Associates." They organize into Content Action Teams and Technology Support Teams around topics of current importance and personal interest. They use Quality Management techniques to continuously update and improve the content resources of the Performance Pyramid. As Associates in the Capstone class, these seniors actively research areas of importance within the domains of the pyramid. They learn to use a software product called Magnolia and make continuous improvements on the site while they participate in the Capstone Class. The Associates in the above picture are in the Fall 2011 Capstone class. Most of them will graduate in May 2012 and begin teaching in September, 2012 . Partners In Learning is proud to have these Miami seniors serve as Research Associates. GrantSuccess is a success at Ohio eTech!
Dr. Douglas Brooks and Ronetta Banks, Executive Director of Instructional Technology for the Mansfield, Ohio Schools presented GrantSuccess to a standing room only crowd of over 150 teachers at the February, 1-3 Ohio eTech Conference in Columbus, Ohio. Attendees demonstrated the importance of the topic to teachers and administrators since the “Grant Writing Made Easy” session was scheduled as the last session on the last day of the conference! Dr. Brooks and Ronetta Banks teamed to take attendees through a customized PowerPoint presentation that included links to the resources hosted on www.newteacherhelp.com, a new partner for Partners In Learning. GrantSuccess resources are available on this site in the grant resources area. The Foundation area includes documents to support successful applications to the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation www.mhj.org
New Partner for Partners In Learning!
Partners in Learning will be contributing columns and resources on grant writing and classroom management to a new and exciting website. Www.newteacherhelp.com has been created by Shannon “Tex” Holden. Shannon is middle school building principal in central Missouri. He has organized his site to include monthly newsletters, a chat room and important topic areas like starting the school year, survival skills, special education and bullying. We are excited to be associated with this very professional site. The information from GrantSuccess includes a column, links to publications describing GrantSuccess and an example of a successful $183,000 grant application!
One More Time for Project BackPac version 3.0
Dr. Douglas Brooks will be collaborating with Tony Kabealo and Nicholas Cramer, graduate students at Miami University to create a third round application for Project BackPac. The vision of Project BacPack is to give Miami University student teachers personal access to reliable and emerging classroom technologies during the student teaching semester. The original Project BackPac 1.0 funded for four Targus backpacks. Each backpack included a Sony projector, MacBook Laptop Pro, Canon ZR950 Cam Corder, Olympus voice recorder, Iomega external hard drive, Kodak tri-pod, and Sony studio. This third round’s application will customize the technology based on feedback from previous student teachers, reduce the footprint of each backpack and weight of the backpac. Last year’s funding put backpacks in Belize, Chicago, DOD Schools in Europe, Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati, Ohio and area school districts. Feedback from Team Over-The Rhine was typical of the impact of the BackPac. “The digital BackPac transformed my student teaching experience. Without this BackPack, I would never have recorded myself teaching, gained a skilled knowledge of Macintosh computers, become video pen-pals with another classroom, and my students would have had significantly less experience with technology. I used the E-beam to create a geography unit utilizing Google Earth. Students worked in small groups to identify the locations of states, counties, cities, major highways, roads, and neighborhoods relative to their local community.
LaSalle High School Gets $50,000 from the Good Neighbor Foundation
Senior administrators at LaSalle High School in Cincinnati, Ohio have announced that the school have received a $50,000 grant from the Good Neighbor Foundation. The funding will support curriculum redesign, electronic textbooks and technology integration. Unique to the project will be the implementation of a 4 year service learning project for every LaSalle student culminating in a presentation at the senior level on scope and impact. LaSalle used the GrantSuccess system for creating their grant application. Credit goes to the hard work of the school’s strategic planning committee and administration.
Partners In Learning Helps Wabash City Schools Receive $182,000 for Technology Integration
Celia Herrell-Shand, Superintendent of the Wabash City Schools in Wabash Indiana has announced that her district has received $182,000 in Cadre 3 Technology Integration funding to begin June 2010. This funding is part of the ARRA funding distributed to states for technology integration support. The primary goal of this grant is to enhance student learning by integrating Smart Board technology and e-Instruction student response systems that will deliver and measure student achievement, student engagement and student performance. Dr. Douglas Brooks, Director of Partners In Learning, was the primary consultant on the project application.
Franklin Community School Corporation “Project Science and More” funded for $115,010.
(FCSC) is twenty miles south of Indianapolis Indiana and 90 miles north of Louisville, Kentucky, on I-65 and U.S. 31. Project "Science and More" is a four (4) goal , nine (9) objective curriculum and technology integration initiative. It capitalizes on a emerging 2009-2010 district-wide curriculum commitment. The Gradual Release of Responsibility” Instructional Model model is designed to achieve improved student engagement, responsibility, and achievement through collaborative instructional design and technology integration. The methods and activities of “Project Science and More” are organized within the project goals and objectives. Each method and activity describes the curricula and teaching strategies that will be used to effectively implement the project. The ongoing and sustained professional development for teachers, principals, technology integration specialists and curriculum teaching coaches will be organized consistent with the goals and objectives of the project. The current capacity of the district to integrate technology is supported by: 1) the constellation of technology and instructional personnel dedicated to the GRR methodology and 2) the emerging classroom technologies that support student-centered, problem-based learning model. The total budget for this project is $115,010. Dr. Douglas Brooks was the grant writing consultant for this proposal.
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