Marie Himes

The Wuzhong Group, a successful real estate development firm in Suzhou, China, is building a state-of-the-art, model school, Suzhou North America High School (SNA), in a residential community in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. The Wuzhong Group approached Dr. Spires and the Friday Institute to consult with them on the design of the school. The Wuzhong Group desires assistance with their stated goal of supporting Chinese high school students to successfully matriculate in top US universities. An on-site visit to Suzhou took place January 6 ?????????????????? 10, 2014, which included NC State administrators and faculty: Dr. Bailian Li, Dr. Ellen Vasu, and Dr. Hiller Spires. All parties agreed to proceed with project development. Project Goals and Strategies/Outcomes by Year The project involves 4 goals: (1) Provide leadership for the development of a teaching, learning, and technology plan for the school. (2) Provide consultation on the physical and technological design of the new facility to ensure that it supports contemporary teaching and learning systems. (3) Provide ongoing training for educational staff in pedagogical approaches for blended learning. (4) Create student and faculty academic exchanges between NC State University and SNA to expand the range and depth of global research and competence in both organizations.

The research team will engage a mixed-methods study to (1) explore the extent to which, as well as the ways in which, the A+ reform model (including access to the A+ network and the Eight Essentials) supported educators (i.e., teachers and school leaders) towards retention during the COVID-19 Pandemic and (2) extend A+???s ongoing efforts to document and understand trends in student achievement data.

With the large majority of schools likely to continue remote learning well into the fall, this project aims to build upon the success demonstrated by Phases I of the At Home Learning initiative, which began by airing two blocks of NC standards-aligned PBS content each weekday on UNC-TV's North Carolina Channel. Phase II expanded upon these efforts to include both UNC-TV produced and teacher generated content featuring messages aired between programming, as well as printable and online materials and activity ideas curated by NCDPI to complement the UNC-TV programming. The purpose of this project is to expand the At Home Learning initiative into a third phase focused on the development of a more comprehensive set of remote learning curriculum materials and resources. Specific goals for Phase II of this initiative include: 1. Lesson Development. Recruit and support teachers to develop NC standards-aligned literacy lessons to be aired on UNC-TV??????????????????s stations (and DPI??????????????????s OER repository and DPI??????????????????s YouTube Channels). 2. Learning Supports. Work with participating teachers to develop one-page extension lessons that correspond to each video lesson filmed to be used by North Carolina teachers and families to support and extend broadcast and internet-based video lessons. 3. Research & Evaluation. Support continuous improvement and gather information on the implementation and impact of the At Home Learning Initiative. 4. Reporting & Dissemination. Report to DPI and UNC-TV on the activities, impacts, and lessons learned both formatively to help guide decision-making and summatively once all program activities have ended. ????????????????