2021 Outstanding Team: Arkansas Teacher Corps

Staff Senate is proud to announce Arkansas Teacher Corps as the winner of the annual Outstanding Team Award for 2021.

The Arkansas Teacher Corps is a partnership between the U of A, the Arkansas Department of Education and Arkansas public school districts to recruit, train, license and support Arkansans as empowered teachers.

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced K-12 schools to move instruction online, the Arkansas Teacher Corps was confronted with the challenge of supporting about 50 teaching fellows in the pivot to a virtual environment. It was essential for ATC to quickly find and implement an online alternative to in-person coaching to maintain their standards of excellence. The team was able to secure a grant from the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, which initiated a pilot run of a virtual coaching platform with Edthena in spring of 2021. ATC fully implemented Edthena for Fall 2021, resulting in a 650 percent average increase in feedback per fellow. Also, since the team's transition to Edthena, fellows report 100 percent satisfaction with the quality and frequency of the coaching they receive.

Members of the ATC Outstanding Team for 2021 are:

• Brandon Lucius, executive director
• Elizabeth Hetherington, director of teacher development
• Matthew Caston, director of institute
• Laureina Toler, teacher development manager
• Kendra Ide, teacher development manager
• Jamie Powell, teacher development manager

The ATC team will be recognized at a celebration on Tuesday, April 26.