Pea Ridge participates in eMints program

Pea Ridge students are benefiting from the district’s participation in a national program studying successful use of technology in the classroom.

The program — EMINTS, an acronym for enhancing Missouri’s Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies — provides research-based professional development services to educators.

Teacher Kelly Graham noted that a group of Pea Ridge teachers received training to train other teachers, so the program can grow.

According to a May release from EMINTS, the center’s reach will expand in Arkansas through a federal Investing in Innovation grant from the U.S. Department of Education worth $12.3 million. The center is studying the effectiveness of its program on teacher instructional practices and student achievement in math, literacy and science, as well as strategies for making the program more cost-effective for schools across the country.

The study will involve more than 24,000 students, nearly 450 teachers and 56 schools over five years in Arkansas, Alabama and Utah, according to the center. The grant will build on more than a decade of research on the EMINTS program.

The study is using randomized research that includes a control group of schools and a treatment group of schools, Graham said. Pea Ridge is in the treatment group. After two years of training, EMINTS will compare the treatment groups to the control groups in an effort to see if technology improved learning.

Teachers noted that curriculum is not being upended; rather, it is being tweaked to embrace modern technology.

The study will end after two years, but what the teachers have learned will continue to benefit classrooms for years after that, Graham said, because teachers are building portfolios of what works.

“My thought,” Graham said, “was how do we use the Chromebooks. I thought it was learning to use them, but it’s a different mindset: It puts the technology at the center of everything… This is thinking way outside the box for these kids. They’re way outside the box in using these Chromebooks.”

“It’s a lot of work,” Moline said, “but there is great payout.”