The University of Alaska Anchorage’s College of Education will use the largest single grant in UAA’s history — $9.3 million over five years — to improve educational resources, training, and professional development for Alaska’s teachers.

The goal is to provide educators with the skills to develop innovative and collaborative methods to help Alaska’s elementary and high school students meet or exceed educational standards.

Funding from the U.S. Department of Education grant will create the Alaska Educational Innovations Network (AEIN), a 15-member consortium comprising UAA’s College of Arts and Sciences; UAA’s community campuses in Kenai, Kodiak and the Mat-Su Valley; eight school districts (Anchorage, Mat-Su, Kashunamiut, Lower Kuskokwim, Kodiak Island Borough, Yupiit, Lake and Pen, and Pribilof); the National Education Association-Alaska; Follow the Leaders, a national education collaborative; and Alaska telecommunications provider GCI, Inc.

The consortium’s eight school districts include 185 schools that serve 71,912 students — more than half of Alaska’s total student population.

 The consortium will energize the state of education in Alaska by focusing on six core areas:

1.  Mentoring and induction. Studies show that a teacher’s first three years on the job are the most crucial. AEIN will develop a mentoring system so that new teachers receive guidance from those already “over the hump.”
2.  Networks and collaboration. The consortium will help schools develop a paradigm that moves away from the isolationism, individualism and cultural norm of privacy that often characterized the organization of schools’ and teachers’ work. Teachers will work collaboratively with individuals who possess differentiated areas of expertise, experience, knowledge and skills.
3. Effective teacher education. Online resources developed by the consortium will help teachers improve both their command of the subjects they teach, and their ability to impart that information to students.
4. Professional Development. The AEIN will work with teachers at all stages of their careers to help them progress in their qualifications and expertise.
5. Leadership. Every teacher will learn to function as part of a network of leaders, facilitating others’ professional development, mentoring colleagues and evaluating student work.
6. Culturally responsive teaching. Alaska teachers will be prepared to incorporate local knowledge and ways of knowing into their curriculum and teaching methods.

 "The purpose of this exciting initiative is directly in line with the larger goals of this administration and of the state of Alaska," said UAA Chancellor Elaine Maimon.

"Student success, at all levels, is a top priority for us. Accomplishing that in partnership with eight school districts, three community campuses, the NEA-Alaska and GCI is community engagement at its finest. I am proud of the UAA faculty and our community partners who worked so hard to develop a proposal that would generate this kind of investment in Alaska by the U.S. Department of Education."

 "GCI has made a substantial investment in improving access to education resources in rural Alaska and is thrilled to extend that investment by committing additional resources to the partnership," said Martin Cary, vice president for GCI Broadband Services.

"Our dedicated SchoolAccess team has worked for schools and teachers around the state to connect them with new educational opportunities since 1997. In the last two years we created and deployed advanced, two-way video distance learning technology into school districts hungry for even more content. These schools are tech-ready and highly motivated to tap into the high-quality content that will be made available as a result of this initiative."

The consortium is expected to become self-sustaining after the initial five-year period.

The College of Education will lead the organizational phase of the consortium during the coming year, and conduct a national search for an executive director, according to Letitia Fickel, UAA associate professor, the principal investigator for the grant.

The highly competitive grant process resulted in UAA receiving one of only 22 grants awarded nationally by the Department of Education.

The purpose of the grant is to help state and local education officials rethink approaches to educating students whose needs are not met by current practices.

“I am very pleased that the federal Department of Education has recognized the merits of this innovative project in awarding the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant to the University of Alaska Anchorage,” said U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski.

 “Quality teacher preparation programs are crucial to the academic success of students in our schools, and this project will address the need to ‘grow our own’ quality teachers and develop a strong and accessible network of resources for Alaskan educators in both rural and urban areas. This funding will help the many partners in this project continue their important work of improving educational opportunities for all students and teachers in Alaska.”