February 10, 2010

Project BRITE symposium held

Project BRITE (Brown's Response to Improving Teacher Education) marked the completion of the first cohort of Education Alliance fellows with a symposium on January 22nd and 23rd at Brown University. The overarching goal of Project BRITE is to prepare quality, classroom educators in the Northeast region who will work in schools with concentrations of ELL students. The specific goal of the program is to provide professional development for 24 Institute of Higher Ed (IHE) faculty of secondary teacher education programs, so that their students, in turn, will graduate as effective educators for ELL students. The symposium gave the fellows an opportunity to report out on their work and to review a presentation by evaluator Dr. Elizabeth Brach.

Project BRITE Symposium Attendees

The second cohort of twelve education faculty will start its work in July, and will be overseen by a coordinator from each of the four participating universities: Dr. Judy Sharkey, The University of New Hampshire; Dr. Louise Wilkinson, Syracuse University; Dr. Fayneese Miller, The University of Vermont; and Dr. James Martin-Rehrmann, Westfield State College.

Project BRITE's unique approach to addressing the needs of English language learners through relevant teacher preparation coursework has been recognized by the United States Department of Education for the quality of its design and implementation. Furthermore, the program's objectives align with the goals of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.