Project Soar

An Indepth Look

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An Indepth Look:

The proposed National Professional Development (NPD) program at Kansas State University, Project SOAR [Sustained Operant (that is, observable &/or measurable) Achievement Response] is specifically designed as an immediate response to the critical needs of two participating school districts in Northeast Kansas: Shawnee Mission, and Olathe. Project SOAR will target three identified and critical needs:

  1. Targeted improvement of academic achievement and success among English language learning (ELL) students in these high-need school districts.
  2. The very limited number of ESL endorsed educators in these
    high-need districts.
  3. Site-based professional development that is grounded in the identified needs, classroom practices, and district challenges of school educators in this rapidly and demographically changing region of the Midwest.

Outcomes Expected from Project SOAR:

As a result of the systemic implementation and evaluation of Project SOAR, the following quality outcomes are expected:

  • Five years of high-quality, course-based professional development for school educators.
  • Curricula specific to ELL student assets and learning needs in target grade-level classrooms.
  • An NPD program (15 credit hours) of high-quality teacher education delivered for course credit by an NCATE-accredited Institution of Higher Education (IHE) in two 2.5-year cycles.
  • IHE-based program curricula that has been appropriately adapted to meet the professional development needs of school educators of ELL students in the urban educational setting.
  • ELL instruction guided and evaluated by content and language objectives.
  • Professional development that leads to an ESL Endorsement in the State of Kansas.
  • Teacher education evaluated (program, participants, and associated ELL student achievement) on an in-process and post-training basis {Addresses Invitational Priority #2, CFDA 84.195N}.
  • Achievement gains (target ELL students) that demonstrate statistically significant improvement at the 90% confidence level (alpha = .10) as a result of project-enhanced teacher effectiveness with theses students {Addresses Invitational Priority #2; GPRA Performance Measure #3; OELA Program Measure #1, RFP, CFDA 84.195N, p. 75518}.