Gates

From TeacherWiki

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Who are the partners on this grant? 3 What is ASSISTments? 4 What will this grant offer districts? 5 What are you committing to by sending in a letter of commitment? 6 What does your district need to do to participate? 7 When do we find out if our school is selected to participate?

Introduction

April 22, 2011

Welcome,

Your school is being invited to participate in a grant-funded program that will provide your school with free training, mentoring, and online tools for mathematics instruction in the middle grades. This page is designed to help you learn about that tool, called ASSISTments, and how you can be part of this grant. Schools in Maine are particular welcome as they will have the technology you need. One of the select criterion of the grant will be to find a group of schools using a small set of commonly used th-9th math text books. In the survey below you will asked to list what books you use. As part of the grant your school will be able to have your students do their homework online with ASSISTments and get immediate feedback as they do so.

Who are the partners on this grant?

NAESP, with Worcester Polytechnic Institute , Edutopia™ and the Connecting Education, Leadership and Technology (CELT) Corporation are finalists for a Next Generation Learning Challenge grant to expand use of a scientifically-proven, web-based formative assessment and tutoring system called ASSISTments™. The Next Generation Learning Challenge is funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

What is ASSISTments?

Here are a few links you can use to learn about ASSISTments.

• About ASSISTments
• This page has a video of teachers and prinipals talking about ASSISTments with the Massachusetts Secretary of Education.
• Research Results show that ASSISTments works.
• Who is behind ASSISTments?
• See a video showing what ASSISTments looks like from the inside.
• Lots more information at our main teacher site.

What will this grant offer districts?

If your school is selected to participate and the grant is funded, your school will benefit from:

• ASSISTments Institute Train-the-Trainer Program like this one we are running this summer in MA. It will be similar to the teacher training we are running in Bangor April 29th and this summer.
• Unlimited Access to the Online Formative Assessment/Assistance System by students, parents, teachers, and instructional leaders (ASSISTments is free and will continue to be free after the grant period.)
• Virtual Mentoring for Participating Teachers and Instructional Leaders

What are you committing to by sending in a letter of commitment?

You are committing to sending one of your staff members to get training in a Train-the-Trainer class multi-day class. You are committing that you will then have that person train your other math teachers. You are committing that you want your staff to practice formative assessment.

What does your district need to do to participate?

Schools will be selected to participate in the project and be included in the final proposal via a two-step application process:

1. Complete an online survey. You will be asked for 1) details of your schools and grades participating, what math books your school uses and what technology you school have (obviously public schools in in Maine will say they have lap tops, but this grant covers 6th and 9 and charter schools as well)
2. Submit a letter of commitment, on school stationary, signed by your school principal or superintendents to gates@WPI.EDU. It should follow this format.

When do we find out if our school is selected to participate?

We anticipate being informed by June 13, 2011.