Project Connect

Responding to a need to strengthen the connections among higher education faculty and in-service and pre-service secondary teachers, Project Connect will establish a network of 190 educators better equipped to serve the needs of Limited English Proficient (LEP) students. To rise to the demand of the area’s rapidly changing student body, a team of educators at Southern Methodist University, the Irving Independent School District, and the Grand Prairie Independent School District have created a model of integrated professional development that makes strong, lasting secondary and university connections in order to provide our LEP population with quality education over the short and long terms.   By supplying educators with effective curricula, ESL instructional techniques, active mentors, and a forum to voice problems and solutions, we can successfully address the growing LEP population.   Project Connect proposes to serve a total of 140 in-service teachers and 50 pre-service teachers over the next five years by presenting an integrated model of professional development with the following components:

• 140 secondary teachers will obtain supplemental ESL certification and complete 12 hours of graduate-level coursework in ESL instructional methods
• 50 pre-service secondary teachers will be matched with participating in-service teachers to receive mentoring and become NCLB Highly Qualified Teachers
• All 190 participants will be connected through a previously developed (in a federally funded research project) “Virtual Coach,” which allows for the exchange of video, audio, and print in a real-time and delayed-time interactional platform
• A publicly available website, ESL Connect, will be created by participating teachers and will be available as a repository for research-based ESL instructional materials: 

(1) lesson plans (participants will contribute 5 fully developed lesson plans each);
(2) video clips (participants will upload footage of their classroom instruction); and
(3) a listserv that promotes discussion among ESL educators

• A field-based component will ensure support for participating in-service and pre-service teachers through classroom observations by higher education faculty and by district professional development personnel

Contact Information

Paige Daniel Ware, Ph.D.
214-768-8623 (tel.)
pware@smu.edu