The 2021-22 school year is in the home stretch! CIESC continues to strive on a daily basis to support and serve its members and educators and students across Indiana.
CIESC, in collaboration with other regional educational service centers, has been fortunate to be part of two state-level grants over the past year or two. For the last two school years, CIESC, along with all other Indiana educational service centers and the Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning (CELL), has been part of a Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER) grant that has provided nearly $3.4 million in technology funding and $1.5 million in educator capacity funding to 30 districts spread throughout Indiana.
It has been an extensive undertaking that has provided funding to improve technology infrastructure, while also focusing on enhancing educator abilities in three primary areas: Leadership/Culture, Social-Emotional Learning, and Digital Learning. Not only have all nine Indiana educational service centers been pivotal in this aspect of the grant, but CIESC’s Keep Indiana Learning professional development efforts have played a significant role in providing a flexible professional development platform to meet the needs of all Indiana educators.
CELL has been a great partner in this effort not only in providing fiscal management and support, but also in supporting districts from a technology perspective. In addition, CELL will be compiling an impact report after the completion of the grant to share what has been learned and what has been implemented by the 30 districts engaged in the GEER grant.
Another significant grant that CIESC along with three other educational service centers, i.e., Region 8, Northern Indiana Educational Service Center (NIESC), and Northwest Indiana Educational Service Center (NWIESC) have been engaged with is a $2.6 million Accelerated Learning grant. Again, the grant includes the invaluable support of CELL, which has been tracking impact and will compile a final impact report at the completion of the grant in June of 2023.
The grant focuses on training 1500 Indiana teachers in the Modern Classrooms Project.
The Modern Classrooms Project is a nonprofit organization that leads a movement of educators in implementing a self-paced, mastery-based instructional model that leverages technology to foster human connection, authentic learning, and social-emotional growth. The MCP model has three components: Blended Instruction, Self-Paced Structure, and Mastery-Based Grading. To date, nearly 500 teachers have enrolled in this instructional approach. The training takes about 25-30 weeks and is asynchronous in nature to allow maximum flexibility for teachers. In addition, each enrolled teacher is assigned a mentor to assist in helping each teacher work through the training. Another benefit of MCP is every teacher who completes training receives a full year of mentoring. The initial training and the 15 months of mentoring, a $1500 value, is fully funded by the grant. If interested, please sign-up for a future cohort.
