160,000 Teachers Served Through Online, on Demand Network for Educators Featured at Clinton Global Initiative America (CGI America) Meeting
Impact on 3.84 million school-aged children.
Westlake Village, CA, June 09, 2015 --(PR.com)-- A new collaborative network of partners working to support educators online, on demand and in communities was announced today at the 2015 Clinton Global Initiative America (CGI America) Meeting. Stacy Kruse of Pragmatic Solutions, Inc. represented the collaborative during the event.
The Collaborative’s goal is to serve 160,000 teachers, aids, paraprofessionals, specialists and administrators across the country. This would impact 3.84 million school-aged children at Title 1 schools.
They also strive to reduce the $2-3 Billion lost each year through teacher attrition. More training equals better retention.
Their Four-Step Approach:
1. Reduce or eliminate professional development costs for individuals and schools in greatest need.
2. Implement accessible training that will improve teacher quality and effectiveness, school climate, and student satisfaction and learning.
3. Provide all individuals that impact student learning access to the quality training they deserve as respected professionals (teachers, administrators, aids, specialists, paraprofessionals, coaches, and staff).
4. Research, analyze, iterate, improve, and share what they learn.
Through the proposed two-year Commitment to Action, Title 1 schools across the country will be offered training utilizing the simSchool platform. Year 1 will target pilots in identified high-need districts in multiple states. Schools will receive access to simSchool, digital resource libraries, support, and custom training courses at no cost. During Year 1 educators may earn Digital Promise Micro-credentials in multiple fields of study including Cultivating Cultural Intelligence, Effective STEM Instruction for all Learners, Improving School Climate through Classroom Management, and others. “Digital Promise is excited to join this effort to strengthen teachers’ practice across the country through effective professional learning opportunities supported by micro-credentials,” said Karen Cator, President and CEO of Digital Promise.
Year 2 will scale up significantly, offering free, quality, equitable training access to all administrators, teachers, aids, specialists and staff at Title 1 schools nationwide, a potential population of nearly 4 million professionals who serve over 24 million children. In both years, teams will work closely with schools to evaluate local technology readiness, strategies for incorporating tech into PD, simSchool’s impact on teacher belief in student ability, changes in school climate, educator retention, and overall impacts on teaching and learning.
In both years, teams will work closely with schools to evaluate local technology readiness, strategies for incorporating tech into PD, simSchool’s impact on teacher belief in student ability, changes in school climate, educator retention, and overall impacts on teaching and learning.
Simultaneously partners hope to change the national conversation about teacher professional development and training — what quality training can cost, how it should be measured, and how it will have a lasting impact on educational outcomes for students and educators in all communities nationwide, fairly, equitably, and with excellence.
The collaborative joins industry Leaders in education, technology, and assessment with shared interests in serving educators and improving education for all. Key partners include Pragmatic Solutions, Inc., simEd Holdings, LLC, Tech Matters, LLC, University of North Texas, Digital Promise, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE), Teachers Without Borders, Vegas PBS and our research partner Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). “We are especially motivated to attack this problem with the leading minds in the industry,” said Robert Brown, COO of Pragmatic Solutions, Inc. and simEd Holdings, LLC.
For more information on the collaborative and to join, please visit: www.simschool.org/calltoaction.
About the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)
Established in 2005 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)—an initiative of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation—convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. CGI Annual Meetings have brought together more than 180 heads of state, 20 Nobel Prize laureates, and hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists, and members of the media. To date, members of the CGI community have made nearly 3,200 commitments, improving the lives of more than 430 million people in over 180 countries.
CGI also convenes CGI America, a meeting focused on collaborative solutions to economic recovery in the United States, and CGI University (CGI U), which brings together undergraduate and graduate students to address pressing challenges in their community or around the world. For more information, visit clintonglobalinitiative.org and follow us on Twitter @ClintonGlobal and Facebook at facebook.com/clintonglobalinitiative.
About CGI America
Established in June 2011 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative America (CGI America)—an initiative of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation—addresses economic recovery in the United States. CGI America brings together leaders in business, government, and civil society to generate and implement commitments to create jobs, stimulate economic growth, foster innovation, and support workforce development in the United States. Since the first meeting in 2011, CGI America participants have made more than 400 commitments, which have already improved the lives of nearly 1.4 million people. To learn more, visit cgiamerica.org.
About Pragmatic Solutions, Inc.
Pragmatic Solutions, Inc. headquartered in Westlake Village, CA, is a data modeling innovator with extensive organizational expertise in creating stable, scalable database and server architecture conducive to business information and learning management systems. Over the past decade, Pragmatic has worked at the leading edge of systems design, exploring how advanced data collection, inference and analysis tools can be used to impact performance, engagement, and learning in education, simulations, games, virtual worlds, and other interactive web environments. Pragmatic's systems currently influence tens of millions of users' online experiences around the world. For more information on Pragmatic, please visit www.pr-sol.com.
About simSchool:
simSchool™ is a research-validated teacher training simulation platform, to democratize access to quality professional development with predictable, measurable results. simSchool has been used for a decade across the world to provide a safe environment to “practice” working with students of varied profiles. simSchool can model 1 trillion students and monitor over 100 data points on teacher effectiveness simultaneously. simSchool is a classroom simulation that supports the rapid accumulation of a teacher's experience in analyzing student differences, adapting instruction to individual learner needs, gathering data about the impacts of instruction, and seeing the results of their teaching. It's a virtual learning environment where instructors can explore instructional strategies, examine classroom management techniques, and practice building relationships with students that will translate into increased learning. The students may be virtual, but their very real behaviors are based on decades of psychological and behavioral research. The results teacher users experience are real and measureable, too, and include improvement in general teaching skill, improved confidence in using technology, and an increased belief that the teacher-user has the skills and ability to make a difference in a child's life. Using simSchool has even been shown to improve pre-service teachers' performance in teacher preparation courses and attitudes toward inclusion of special needs students. In these ways and more, simSchool enables transformational experiences for teachers to help them become more effective leaders in their classrooms and learning communities. For more information on simSchool, please visit www.simSchool.org.
About Tech Matters, LLC:
Tech Matters provides knowledge and support to educators who use, or plan to use, technology for inquiry based instruction and project based learning to motivate their students in STEM disciplines. We collaborate with educators to help them incorporate ever changing technologies in their curricula and lesson plans, and help them integrate active learning in new or existing learning environments.
Through our work with teacher preparation programs, we found SimSchool aligns with the Tech Matters goal to use affordable technology to improve teaching efficacy. We collaborate with IHEs, and K-12 schools and districts to implement simSchool including: initial training, collaboration in module development, and development of sustainable professional development and professional learning communities for continued growth with simSchool. Please visit techmattersllc.com.
About University of North Texas:
UNT is a student-focused, public, research university located in Denton, Texas. One of Texas' largest universities, UNT offers 97 bachelors, 88 masters’ and 40 doctoral degree programs within the university's 12 colleges and schools. During the simSchool Modules project, UNT will serve as the Research Center on Teaching and Learning with simSchool. http://www.unt.edu.
About Digital Promise:
Digital Promise is a nonprofit organization authorized by Congress to spur innovation in education in order to improve the opportunity to learn for all Americans. Through its work with educators, entrepreneurs, researchers, and leading thinkers, Digital Promise supports a comprehensive agenda to benefit lifelong learning and provide Americans with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global economy. http://www.digitalpromise.org.
About Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE):
The Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), founded in 1981, is an international, not-for-profit, educational organization with the mission of advancing Information Technology in Education and E-Learning research, development, learning, and its practical application.
AACE serves the profession with international conferences, high quality publications, leading-edge Digital Library, Career Center, and other opportunities for professional growth.
About Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE):
SITE–Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education promotes the development and dissemination of theoretical knowledge, conceptual research, and professional practice knowledge through the SITE conference, books, collaborative projects with other organizations, and the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education.
SITE (founded in 1990) is a society of AACE–Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. AACE (founded in 1981) is an international, educational, and professional organization dedicated to the advancement of the knowledge, theory and quality of learning and teaching at all levels with information technology.
The Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education is an international association of individual teacher educators, and affiliated organizations of teacher educators in all disciplines, who are interested in the creation and dissemination of knowledge about the use of information technology in teacher education and faculty/staff development.
The Society seeks to promote research, scholarship, collaboration, exchange, and support among its membership, and to actively foster the development of new national organizations where a need emerges. SITE is the only organization that has as its sole focus the integration of instructional technologies into teacher education programs.
About Teachers Without Borders:
Teachers Without Borders is a leading nonprofit in the field of international education and teacher professional development. Founded in 2000, the organization believes that teachers are the natural and obvious key to human welfare. With over 6,000 members from more than 180 countries, TWB supports teachers by gathering and creating free and open educational resources; empowering the voices of teachers and community leaders; and nurturing partnerships from the village to the government. All TWB content is derived from the collective wisdom of our teacher members, and not a broadcast model of right answers. For more information and to sign up as a member for free, visit our website at www.teacherswithoutborders.org.
About Vegas PBS:
Known only as “KLVX-TV Channel 10” at its inception, Vegas PBS is located in the world-renowned entertainment destination of Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Federal Communications Commission license to operate Channel 10 in the community interest as a noncommercial, educational television station was granted to the Clark County School District in 1966. Individual CCSD trustees have since served as the FCC approved licensees of Vegas PBS, setting broad programming policy, and approving its annual budget.
When KLVX began broadcasting as “educational television” in March 1968, two-thirds of the broadcast day was devoted to live for-credit classes produced by professional and vocational education students. At that time, all KLVX operating costs were assumed by the school district. The percentage of such funding gradually decreased over the years as community support grew, until 1999, when CCSD ended its financial support for capital and operations expenses related to public television.
Today, Vegas PBS offers a much more diverse set of programs and resources than it did back in 1968, and receives reimbursements from CCSD only for educational media services provided directly to classrooms, used by teachers, or that communicate with the public.
As we close in on our first half-century, Vegas PBS offers formal and informal education for students and non-students alike, through an array of digital technologies, accessible anywhere and anytime.
As a result of partnerships with nonprofit and governmental agencies, one-third of all adults in our community will benefit from online basic skills, high school diploma programs, or professional education and job certification courses offered through Vegas PBS during the course of this strategic plan.
Almost 100% of children will watch television programs, view classroom media, or use internet or mobile interactive educational apps. Finally, our traditional PBS programs will be viewed on an ever increasing array of devices.
Ensuring that Vegas PBS can effectively serve the educational, information and artistic needs of our community through inventive and resourceful application of new technologies is the focus of our strategic plan. For more information please go to VegasPBS.org.
About Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP):
The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEPnet.org) advances excellence in educator preparation through evidence-based accreditation that assures quality and supports continuous improvement to strengthen P-12 student learning.
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/simschool
Become a Friend on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simSchool
Contact:
Funder & Media Inquiries: Robert Brown, rob@pr-sol.com, 818-970-9104
Partner & Research Inquiries: Stacy Kruse, skruse@simschool.org, 818.517.9489
The Collaborative’s goal is to serve 160,000 teachers, aids, paraprofessionals, specialists and administrators across the country. This would impact 3.84 million school-aged children at Title 1 schools.
They also strive to reduce the $2-3 Billion lost each year through teacher attrition. More training equals better retention.
Their Four-Step Approach:
1. Reduce or eliminate professional development costs for individuals and schools in greatest need.
2. Implement accessible training that will improve teacher quality and effectiveness, school climate, and student satisfaction and learning.
3. Provide all individuals that impact student learning access to the quality training they deserve as respected professionals (teachers, administrators, aids, specialists, paraprofessionals, coaches, and staff).
4. Research, analyze, iterate, improve, and share what they learn.
Through the proposed two-year Commitment to Action, Title 1 schools across the country will be offered training utilizing the simSchool platform. Year 1 will target pilots in identified high-need districts in multiple states. Schools will receive access to simSchool, digital resource libraries, support, and custom training courses at no cost. During Year 1 educators may earn Digital Promise Micro-credentials in multiple fields of study including Cultivating Cultural Intelligence, Effective STEM Instruction for all Learners, Improving School Climate through Classroom Management, and others. “Digital Promise is excited to join this effort to strengthen teachers’ practice across the country through effective professional learning opportunities supported by micro-credentials,” said Karen Cator, President and CEO of Digital Promise.
Year 2 will scale up significantly, offering free, quality, equitable training access to all administrators, teachers, aids, specialists and staff at Title 1 schools nationwide, a potential population of nearly 4 million professionals who serve over 24 million children. In both years, teams will work closely with schools to evaluate local technology readiness, strategies for incorporating tech into PD, simSchool’s impact on teacher belief in student ability, changes in school climate, educator retention, and overall impacts on teaching and learning.
In both years, teams will work closely with schools to evaluate local technology readiness, strategies for incorporating tech into PD, simSchool’s impact on teacher belief in student ability, changes in school climate, educator retention, and overall impacts on teaching and learning.
Simultaneously partners hope to change the national conversation about teacher professional development and training — what quality training can cost, how it should be measured, and how it will have a lasting impact on educational outcomes for students and educators in all communities nationwide, fairly, equitably, and with excellence.
The collaborative joins industry Leaders in education, technology, and assessment with shared interests in serving educators and improving education for all. Key partners include Pragmatic Solutions, Inc., simEd Holdings, LLC, Tech Matters, LLC, University of North Texas, Digital Promise, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE), Teachers Without Borders, Vegas PBS and our research partner Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). “We are especially motivated to attack this problem with the leading minds in the industry,” said Robert Brown, COO of Pragmatic Solutions, Inc. and simEd Holdings, LLC.
For more information on the collaborative and to join, please visit: www.simschool.org/calltoaction.
About the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)
Established in 2005 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)—an initiative of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation—convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. CGI Annual Meetings have brought together more than 180 heads of state, 20 Nobel Prize laureates, and hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists, and members of the media. To date, members of the CGI community have made nearly 3,200 commitments, improving the lives of more than 430 million people in over 180 countries.
CGI also convenes CGI America, a meeting focused on collaborative solutions to economic recovery in the United States, and CGI University (CGI U), which brings together undergraduate and graduate students to address pressing challenges in their community or around the world. For more information, visit clintonglobalinitiative.org and follow us on Twitter @ClintonGlobal and Facebook at facebook.com/clintonglobalinitiative.
About CGI America
Established in June 2011 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative America (CGI America)—an initiative of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation—addresses economic recovery in the United States. CGI America brings together leaders in business, government, and civil society to generate and implement commitments to create jobs, stimulate economic growth, foster innovation, and support workforce development in the United States. Since the first meeting in 2011, CGI America participants have made more than 400 commitments, which have already improved the lives of nearly 1.4 million people. To learn more, visit cgiamerica.org.
About Pragmatic Solutions, Inc.
Pragmatic Solutions, Inc. headquartered in Westlake Village, CA, is a data modeling innovator with extensive organizational expertise in creating stable, scalable database and server architecture conducive to business information and learning management systems. Over the past decade, Pragmatic has worked at the leading edge of systems design, exploring how advanced data collection, inference and analysis tools can be used to impact performance, engagement, and learning in education, simulations, games, virtual worlds, and other interactive web environments. Pragmatic's systems currently influence tens of millions of users' online experiences around the world. For more information on Pragmatic, please visit www.pr-sol.com.
About simSchool:
simSchool™ is a research-validated teacher training simulation platform, to democratize access to quality professional development with predictable, measurable results. simSchool has been used for a decade across the world to provide a safe environment to “practice” working with students of varied profiles. simSchool can model 1 trillion students and monitor over 100 data points on teacher effectiveness simultaneously. simSchool is a classroom simulation that supports the rapid accumulation of a teacher's experience in analyzing student differences, adapting instruction to individual learner needs, gathering data about the impacts of instruction, and seeing the results of their teaching. It's a virtual learning environment where instructors can explore instructional strategies, examine classroom management techniques, and practice building relationships with students that will translate into increased learning. The students may be virtual, but their very real behaviors are based on decades of psychological and behavioral research. The results teacher users experience are real and measureable, too, and include improvement in general teaching skill, improved confidence in using technology, and an increased belief that the teacher-user has the skills and ability to make a difference in a child's life. Using simSchool has even been shown to improve pre-service teachers' performance in teacher preparation courses and attitudes toward inclusion of special needs students. In these ways and more, simSchool enables transformational experiences for teachers to help them become more effective leaders in their classrooms and learning communities. For more information on simSchool, please visit www.simSchool.org.
About Tech Matters, LLC:
Tech Matters provides knowledge and support to educators who use, or plan to use, technology for inquiry based instruction and project based learning to motivate their students in STEM disciplines. We collaborate with educators to help them incorporate ever changing technologies in their curricula and lesson plans, and help them integrate active learning in new or existing learning environments.
Through our work with teacher preparation programs, we found SimSchool aligns with the Tech Matters goal to use affordable technology to improve teaching efficacy. We collaborate with IHEs, and K-12 schools and districts to implement simSchool including: initial training, collaboration in module development, and development of sustainable professional development and professional learning communities for continued growth with simSchool. Please visit techmattersllc.com.
About University of North Texas:
UNT is a student-focused, public, research university located in Denton, Texas. One of Texas' largest universities, UNT offers 97 bachelors, 88 masters’ and 40 doctoral degree programs within the university's 12 colleges and schools. During the simSchool Modules project, UNT will serve as the Research Center on Teaching and Learning with simSchool. http://www.unt.edu.
About Digital Promise:
Digital Promise is a nonprofit organization authorized by Congress to spur innovation in education in order to improve the opportunity to learn for all Americans. Through its work with educators, entrepreneurs, researchers, and leading thinkers, Digital Promise supports a comprehensive agenda to benefit lifelong learning and provide Americans with the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global economy. http://www.digitalpromise.org.
About Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE):
The Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), founded in 1981, is an international, not-for-profit, educational organization with the mission of advancing Information Technology in Education and E-Learning research, development, learning, and its practical application.
AACE serves the profession with international conferences, high quality publications, leading-edge Digital Library, Career Center, and other opportunities for professional growth.
About Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE):
SITE–Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education promotes the development and dissemination of theoretical knowledge, conceptual research, and professional practice knowledge through the SITE conference, books, collaborative projects with other organizations, and the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education.
SITE (founded in 1990) is a society of AACE–Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. AACE (founded in 1981) is an international, educational, and professional organization dedicated to the advancement of the knowledge, theory and quality of learning and teaching at all levels with information technology.
The Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education is an international association of individual teacher educators, and affiliated organizations of teacher educators in all disciplines, who are interested in the creation and dissemination of knowledge about the use of information technology in teacher education and faculty/staff development.
The Society seeks to promote research, scholarship, collaboration, exchange, and support among its membership, and to actively foster the development of new national organizations where a need emerges. SITE is the only organization that has as its sole focus the integration of instructional technologies into teacher education programs.
About Teachers Without Borders:
Teachers Without Borders is a leading nonprofit in the field of international education and teacher professional development. Founded in 2000, the organization believes that teachers are the natural and obvious key to human welfare. With over 6,000 members from more than 180 countries, TWB supports teachers by gathering and creating free and open educational resources; empowering the voices of teachers and community leaders; and nurturing partnerships from the village to the government. All TWB content is derived from the collective wisdom of our teacher members, and not a broadcast model of right answers. For more information and to sign up as a member for free, visit our website at www.teacherswithoutborders.org.
About Vegas PBS:
Known only as “KLVX-TV Channel 10” at its inception, Vegas PBS is located in the world-renowned entertainment destination of Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Federal Communications Commission license to operate Channel 10 in the community interest as a noncommercial, educational television station was granted to the Clark County School District in 1966. Individual CCSD trustees have since served as the FCC approved licensees of Vegas PBS, setting broad programming policy, and approving its annual budget.
When KLVX began broadcasting as “educational television” in March 1968, two-thirds of the broadcast day was devoted to live for-credit classes produced by professional and vocational education students. At that time, all KLVX operating costs were assumed by the school district. The percentage of such funding gradually decreased over the years as community support grew, until 1999, when CCSD ended its financial support for capital and operations expenses related to public television.
Today, Vegas PBS offers a much more diverse set of programs and resources than it did back in 1968, and receives reimbursements from CCSD only for educational media services provided directly to classrooms, used by teachers, or that communicate with the public.
As we close in on our first half-century, Vegas PBS offers formal and informal education for students and non-students alike, through an array of digital technologies, accessible anywhere and anytime.
As a result of partnerships with nonprofit and governmental agencies, one-third of all adults in our community will benefit from online basic skills, high school diploma programs, or professional education and job certification courses offered through Vegas PBS during the course of this strategic plan.
Almost 100% of children will watch television programs, view classroom media, or use internet or mobile interactive educational apps. Finally, our traditional PBS programs will be viewed on an ever increasing array of devices.
Ensuring that Vegas PBS can effectively serve the educational, information and artistic needs of our community through inventive and resourceful application of new technologies is the focus of our strategic plan. For more information please go to VegasPBS.org.
About Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP):
The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEPnet.org) advances excellence in educator preparation through evidence-based accreditation that assures quality and supports continuous improvement to strengthen P-12 student learning.
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/simschool
Become a Friend on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simSchool
Contact:
Funder & Media Inquiries: Robert Brown, rob@pr-sol.com, 818-970-9104
Partner & Research Inquiries: Stacy Kruse, skruse@simschool.org, 818.517.9489
Contact
simSchool
Robert Brown
818-970-9104
www.simschool.org
Robert Brown
818-970-9104
www.simschool.org
Contact
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