JSU’s Fourth Annual CORE Academy Goes National
06/06/2016
More than 400 educators from across the US are converging on Jacksonville this week for the fourth annual CORE Academy hosted by JSU on June 7-9, 2016.
The CORE Academy is an offshoot of JSU’s Collaborative Regional Education (CORE) program, which – with more than $27 million in grant funding from partners including the US Department of Education – brings technology to high-need rural classrooms in an effort to improve college and work readiness among 8th-12th grade students.
What began as a rural Alabama initiative has expanded to include Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina and Texas. The CORE model integrates technology in classrooms and provides teachers with professional development that prepares them to use technology as a tool to support individualized learning. To that end, the CORE Academy brings hundreds of teachers to the JSU campus each summer for three days of hands-on training.
Each year, the CORE Academy manages to grow and achieve even greater success than the year prior. Held for the first time in 2013, the academy teaches educators to embrace students’ obsession with smartphones, iPads and other electronic devices and harness technology to better engage their classrooms.
In 2015, a record number of 450 participants representing 33 school systems attended CORE Academy. This year, the program will include teachers and administrators served by the partner universities that have joined CORE: Fayetteville State University, Savannah State University, Southeast Missouri State University, Tarleton State University, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, West Texas A&M University and Louisiana Tech University.
More than 70 breakout sessions will be held on campus over three days, with keynote speakers Andy Andrews and Dave Burgess on the agenda to provide extra inspiration. The theme is “It Starts With Us.”
When participants are not in workshops they will be experiencing all that Jacksonville and the surrounding area have to offer – staying in local hotels and enjoying local dining and shopping. The academy not only boosts the area economy, but also heightens the university’s image.
“CORE is catching on and giving JSU visibility in partnering communities, regions and states,” said Alicia Simmons, vice president for research, planning and collaboration. “It's an exciting time to be part of CORE.”
In addition to teacher training and support, CORE also offers dual enrollment scholarships to high school students through a program called CORE Scholars. Students in 10th-12th grades at CORE partner schools are eligible to apply for dual enrollment scholarships to JSU, enabling them to earn college and high school credit simultaneously in select courses.
In June and July, JSU is hosting CORE Scholars for dual enrollment workshops, where they will learn how to utilize the online library for research, navigate through Blackboard for online courses, and utilize myJSU and Office 365 software.
For more information on the CORE Academy or other upcoming CORE events, please visit www.corepartners.org.