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Opportunity at 3E Institute

The West Chester University Foundation invites applications and nominations for the full time position of Partnership and Curriculum Coordinator of the 3E Institute. The Coordinator will be an experienced educator who garners resources through grants and contracts, forges partnerships with businesses and other entities, and ensures content rigor and pedagogical coherence for professional development courses, workshops and seminars.

Follow this link for a full job description

A Big Success for 3E Institute and DVIN

Throughout the summer and fall the 3E Institute delivered our Cyber Teaming Seminar for Life Science Business Professionals and Educators to 95 individuals, including high school teachers as well as active and displaced workers in the life science field. Our clients were residents of the 14 county region served by the Delaware Valley Innovation Network (DVIN), our funding partner in the initiative.

Although the project was officially completed as of December 31, 2009, we will continue to develop curriculum and instruction based on the Cyber Teaming Seminar. We would like to thank the following 3E seminar hosts who participated and were instrumental in making the seminars a success: Burlington County Community College, Community College of Philadelphia, Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center, Johnson & Johnson, Locus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Right Management and the University Science Center.

We are especially appreciative of the efforts of State Farm Insurance volunteers and Advisory Council members Bill Martin, Colleen Hamilton, Tony Girifalco and Marybeth DiVincenzo. Last, but not least, many thanks are due the Delaware Valley Innovation Network for funding and helping with plans and recruitment.

Stay tuned for the next part of 3E Cyber Teaming!

Highlights of Project Mgmt
Skills for Educators

 From implementing project based learning in the classroom to developing collaborative partnerships with industry, basic skills of project management are essential for educators. Often the first introduction teachers have in developing project collaborations comes as a result of their enrollment in the 3E Institute's 21st Century Educator Externship course, where teachers are placed in job shadowing experiences with companies, non-profits and government agencies.  Opportunities to network and collaborate are a main ingredient of all 3E Institute courses and seminars. Our Entrepreneurial Educator and Emerging Science and Technologies courses include an introduction to project management as a technique to create superior plans, efficiencies in educational projects, and understanding of business operational processes.

The 3E Cyber Teaming: Collaboration and Communication seminar, developed in cooperation with State Farm volunteers and partnership with  the Delaware Valley Innovation Network, uses Web 2.0 skills, tools and processes for collaborative problem-solving. It also presents an introduction to project management. 

Recently we have begun a dialog with the Project Management Institute Educational Foundation ( www.PMIEF.org ) to discover that we share an interest in providing real world professional development opportunities for educators at any phase of a project management cycle: initiating a new project based learning module; planning  actions ; delivery of a classroom project; monitoring and controlling the performance; or closure with reflections on lessons learned.

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The Educator 500 may be looking for YOU!

We recognize and support educators who:

  • Create innovative learning projects to address specific educational needs of students
  • Use collaborative approaches
  • Partner with business, community and parents in learning projects
  • Document change and results

The Institute for Educational Excellence and Entrepreneurship (3E Institute) of West Chester University established the Educator 500 to recognize, reward and support entrepreneurial educators who create original, exciting learning opportunities for their students. If you have developed such a project – alone or with a team – consider becoming an Educator 500.

Getting this award for your project means:

  • You will be recognized at a major educational forum and receive a stipend
  • Your project will be disseminated through 3E's digital community
  • You may participate in exciting 3E events – networking, seminars, workshops
  • You may apply for 3E seed grants for projects
  • You may enter into the next level of 3E programming
 

“Educational Excellence and Entrepreneurship:

A Journey from Teaching to Making Minds

On Wednesday November 4th   a mix of 65 educators, West Chester University (WCU) graduate students, business consultants and friends of the 3E Institute and the College of Education gathered at the Graduate Business Center to meet a legend of innovative educational thought and practice, Dr. Paul Kelley.

 

Dr. Kelley is the founder and headmaster of Monkseaton High School in Newcastle, UK, an incubator for applying new learning insights based on solid research to school contexts.   Many of Dr. Kelley’s insights and experiences in innovative, research based learning are presented in his highly acclaimed book, Making Minds, Routledge 2008.

 


Dr. Paul Kelley, left, founder of Monkseaton and
Dr. Dennis Cheek, Senior Fellow, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

 

Research findings Dr. Kelley has put into practice at Monkseaton include:

·         Unconventional testing methods to assess real learning

·         Importance of circadian rhythms to learning

·         Use of more light to stimulate greater learning

·         The critical factor of time – patterns in time and intervals – to learning and remembering

·         Optimum age  of 7-11 years old for all children to be learning foreign languages

 

In conclusion, Dr. Kelley told his eager audience, “In your lifetime you will learn how it really works. In your lifetime we will know how learning occurs …At that point we will evolve from teaching to making minds

 

Dr. Kelley’s visit to WCU was made possible thanks to Dr. Dennis Cheek, Senior Fellow of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and member of the teaching faculty of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. Our thanks to both Dr. Kelley and Dr.Cheek.

 

To read more about the highly innovative Monkseaton High School, visit its web site Monkseaton High School.
 

 

Did It Come from Another Galaxy? 

 

No, this is the newly opened school building of widely acclaimed Monkseaton High School in Newcastle, UK, founded by Dr. Paul Kelley. The school is designed to accommodate very unconventional ways of learning based on how the human brain actually learns best. The approach is to use the finding of neuroscience research in a more natural environment.

Imagine a high school that looks more like a large disc- shaped UFO with half of its surface translucent, encased in a giant metal framed basket.  There are red, blue, yellow and green boxes arranged on top. It’s like no school you’ve every seen before.

 

·         It is made of 7,000 pieces of steel.

·         It avoids square classrooms to cut noise AND classrooms have no ceilings.

·         There are 44 individual pre-manufacture toilet pods, eliminating communal toilets.

·         The roof features “wind catchers” designed encourage natural air movements, reducing need for air conditioning.

·         Solar panels, insulation and solar shading using brise soleil on external walls help save energy.

 

Monkseaton was the first public trust school in Great Britain. In collaboration with corporate partners and university researchers, Monkseaton, serving a population of disadvantaged youth, has pioneered new approaches to learning foreign languages, school environmental design, and learning math, science and technology.    

Submit New Project

Registered as an Educational Entrepreneur, School Administrator or Teacher?  Click here to submit an Educator 500 Project directly online. 

Not yet registered?  Use the Sign Up link at the top to register.  View Educator 500 projects.

 

Educator Quotes


“To see the students achieve is our great award"

 - Christine DiPaulo
2008 Educator 500

“Education is a process to be continued, not a task to be completed"

- Isaac Asimov

Educator 500 Videos

Click on the image above to see videos of Educator 500 projects

THANKS, PARTNER!!

3e Institute and WIB Team Up on Teacher Externship and Student Career Awareness Program


Partnering with the Chester County Workforce Investment Board (WIB), 3e inaugurated its 21st Century Educator Externship and Collaborative Student Career Awareness program.  To learn more about this exciting first for area students, click here.