Funding, Grants & Awards

West Gate Elementary, Pine City High Win Differentiated Instruction Tech Grants

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 03/30/15

Teacher teams at West Gate Elementary School and Pine City High School have been awarded technology and professional development grants valued at $250,000 from assessment solution provider Naiku.

Launched earlier this year, Naiku's Innovative Educator Grant program will run through April 30, with new winners, comprising both teacher teams and individuals, selected each month. Once awarded, the grants, which are designed to support differentiated instruction and personalized learning, will provide access to assessment software and professional development for teachers through June 2016. Twenty-eight school wide team grants and 10 grants for individual teachers remain.

"We are extremely fortunate to receive this grant from Naiku," said Patrick Heath, instructional technology coach at West Gate Elementary, in a prepared statement. "We feel that the use of learner-centric assessment will benefit our students and teachers in our effort to increase achievement scores for all students, with an emphasis on our ELL and disabled student populations. Historically, these groups of students have not scored as well on state assessments. With the support of Naiku's Innovative Teacher Team Grant, we will see improvement in our assessment results and long term positive benefits for our students."

"I think Naiku is amazing and am so pleased to have won an Innovative Teacher Team Grant," said Dihanna Fedder, Pine City High School tech integration specialist, in a prepared statement. "Our students and staff will benefit from seeing progress on standards, the support and flexibility of the software and the opportunity to use assessment artifacts that are already prepared and available through our curriculum. We look forward to being able to align our assessments and provide students the opportunity for remediation and feedback throughout the assessment process."

For more information, or to apply for a grant, visit naiku.net/grants.