The University of Missouri – Columbia College of Education

Primary Grant Focus

Professional development and assessment experts at the College of Education at the University of Missouri-Columbia aim to improve teacher implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by offering teachers a comprehensive online system of professional development resources.

Strategies for Supporting Common Core Success

The Network for Educator Effectiveness (NEE), developed and housed at the University of Missouri-Columbia, provides high-quality online teacher training and resources related to the instructional shifts required by the CCSS. NEE is the largest, university-based, K-12 internet-accessible network in the country. With more than 35,000 teachers in the system, it serves districts across the state. The NEE website provides high-quality online teacher training for all teachers to support professional development and student learning related to CCSS instructional shifts.

With BMGF funding the Network is:

Adding a series of CCSS-focused online learning modules for mathematics and English language arts to an existing library. The first set of CCSS-related modules offered teachers basic information about standards-based academic content and instructional approaches. New modules delve deeper into this content.
Providing to principals teacher progress data from the online modules, to strengthen principal understanding of: (1) How the CCSS might be integrated into existing curricula, and (2) how instructional practices could be adapted to meet these more rigorous standards.