The purpose of this project, Middle Grades Educators Empowering Learners, is to unite a coalition of educators, including education and college of arts and sciences faculty partnered with public school educators, to build the region’s capacity to ensure the success of middle grades students, particularly those who are at risk of being unsuccessful in classrooms and traditional school environments. The project will be focused on improving the quality of teachers in the critical areas of literacy, mathematics and science, ensuring that the teachers are highly qualified with the critical content knowledge and pedagogical skills to teach their subject matter. Of equal importance, the project will provide intense professional development using a rigorous, interdisciplinary approach to thinking and learning which creates a learning environment that harnesses the talents, energy, and minds of middle level learners.

This project is designed to focus on middle grades teachers and assisting them to become highly qualified, appropriately licensed, highly knowledgeable about and pedagogically skilled in effectively instructing students in literacy, mathematics and science. Another goal is to ensure that Principals have the instructional leadership skills to help them work more effectively with teachers to help students master core academic subjects.