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Innovation Institute for Catholic Educators

The Innovation Institute for Catholic Educators is a CACE partnership with Boston College designed to promote the discovery and implementation of transformative strategies to provide optimal experiences for Catholic school students. The work of the Institute is informed by a Committee comprised of CACE members and NCEA staff.
 

The Innovation Institute for Catholic Educators was launched by NCEA and Boston College at the 2012 NCEA Convention in Boston, MA. The first Institute program, hosted by the Roche Center for Catholic Education, will include the design and delivery of two-way immersion programs derived from a selected national cohort of Catholic schools. Prospective participants were recruited and engaged to consider the opportunities for achieving synergy between research and practice generated by Catholic universities and PK-12 Catholic schools.


Initiative One: Two-Way Immersion Catholic Schools

The inaugural initiative of the Innovation Institute is a game changer for Catholic elementary education. Leading research has demonstrated that students who are immersed in a second language while maintaining and enriching their primary language perform exceedingly well in school as they become fluent bilingual thinkers and speakers. Test scores improve and overall school performance is enriched. More significantly, two defining characteristics of Catholic education are: to commit to educating the whole child, and to be accessible to all students. To paraphrase Martin Scanlon (2010), Catholic schools, which embrace linguistic diversity, clearly deepen their application of Catholic social teaching and are investing in a strategy to thrive in our increasingly pluralistic society.

This first initiative will support up to ten nationally selected schools over a three-year period. During this time school leadership teams will study and train at Boston College during the summer of 2013 with access to national scholars, practitioners and coach-mentors. Implementation and assessment plans for each school will be developed to accommodate the needs of each school. The expected outcome goal for each team is to adopt and adapt the most appropriate model to meet school needs. Outcomes of this initiative will include: ongoing school community-based research; academic, instructional and performance-based research across all schools; and the formation of a network of two-way immersion Catholic elementary schools.

For more information on the Innovation Institute and this initiative click HERE.

Contact
 
For more information, please contact Heather Gossart, CACE Project Director for the Innovation Institute, at hgossart@ncea.org or Patricia Weitzel-O'Neill, Boston College Project Director for the Innovation Institute, at patricia.weitzel-oneill@bc.edu.