UB Education School Receives $495,000 Grant to Develop Technology Education Program for State’s Teachers

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A consortium that includes the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education (GSE) has received a three-year grant through a U.S. Department of Education initiative to develop a model that can be used to infuse technology instruction into teacher-education programs.

In addition to UB, institutions involved in the $495,000 catalyst grant titled "Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology" -- "PT3" for short -- will include the New York State Department of Education, Columbia University Teachers' College and Syracuse University.

The PT3 initiative typically funds projects that fuel and sustain efforts to guide teacher learning in the areas of education technology and information studies.

The grant will fund efforts with urban schools in the consortium's purview (Buffalo, Yonkers, Syracuse and two New York City school districts) to prepare, attract and keep new teachers by ensuring that they are able use technology in the teaching-and-learning process and for classroom management.

The consortium will collect data through surveys, interviews and focus groups, and use it to develop a model for pre-service teacher education and in-service professional development for new teachers. Once the model is prepared for the state, UB may consider a pilot implementation program.

Thomas Frantz, professor and interim dean of the UB Graduate School of Education, says it is a principal mission of the school to assist community schools in implementing the finest educational technologies.

He notes that such assistance, along with teacher-education and urban-education initiatives, are the three themes embraced by the PT3 initiative.

One of the top-rated, graduate-level education schools in the country, the UB Graduate School of Education already offers a variety of programs and other opportunities that encourage prospective and graduate teachers to take advantage of educational technologies.

Suzanne Miller, GSE associate dean, points to the school's considerable experience in the development of field-, Web- and classroom-tested technology-infusion programs. The school has a professional and academic staff dedicated to the development and refinement of new educational technologies and two applied research centers devoted to the study and application of technology in the classroom.

Miller says this puts the GSE in an excellent position to work with other graduate schools of education to produce a solid, workable model for use throughout the state.

"Right now," Frantz says, "Teacher-education programs offered through the GSE Teacher Education Institute emphasize technology preparedness through school-based field experience, distance-learning programs and Web-based classroom instruction of teachers.

"The GSE Center for the Study of Technology in Education offers an interdisciplinary, advanced-certificate program in educational technology," he adds, "and we're working with the Jamestown city school district to develop a Web-based master's degree program for teachers.

"Once implemented, such a program will have wide appeal, particularly for teachers at a physical remove from graduate programs in teacher education.

"In addition to that," Frantz says, "the Center for Advancement of Technology in Education (CATE), headed by Donald Jacobs, associate dean in the GSE, works continuously with GSE faculty, Buffalo city schools and other institutions, agencies and school districts through several funded programs to help train individual classroom teachers throughout Western New York in the effective use of educational technologies."