UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Anna Boyd Child Development Center

USC's Department of Educational Psychology has an ongoing relationship with the center that has included placement of graduate students in early childhood special education practicums and preschool research activities. The center also has been involved in development and pilot testing of the Evaluation of the Half-day Four-year-old Children's Programs funded by the S.C. Education Improvement Act. For more information, contact Bill Brown, department of Educational Psychology in the College of Education, at 803-777-6582.

Bridges of Engineering Education

This is a partnership between the College of Education and the College of Engineering and Computing to improve the pedagogical skills of engineering faculty and increase engineering content in K-12 education. For more information, contact Jed Lyons at the College of Engineering and Computing, 803-777-9552, or visit http://www.sc.edu/bridges/.

Bridges to Success

USC Upstate's Math and Computer Science Division runs the Bridges to Success program, which provides professional development workshops in mathematics and pedagogy to middle school teachers along with mentoring opportunities between middle school teachers and post-secondary mathematics teachers. For more information, call 864-503-5236.

Carolina Shout

Carolina Shout is a periodic performance event that celebrates teaching. The Department of Educational Psychology sponsors an evening devoted to music and testimony from students about the many ways their former teachers have made a positive impact on their lives. Contact Craig Kridel, Department of Educational Psychology in the College of Education, at 803-777-7257.

Center of Excellence in Collaborative Learning—USC Beaufort

Initially funded by the S.C. Commission on Higher Education, this teaching and research center will study both pre-service and in-service education, with an emphasis on collaborative learning. Participants include key USCB faculty and administrators; selected USCB undergraduate students; regional school administrators; and public school teachers from Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton, and Colleton counties. CECL also will establish partnerships and alliances with community and social service agencies, and will develop the center in relation to research at other institutions within the USC system. For more information, call 843-208-8253.

Child and Family Studies, The Center for

Based in the College of Social Work, The Center for Child and Family Studies, addresses issues related to children and families through curriculum development and training, research and program evaluation, conference planning, and social work education initiatives. The center's initiatives include:

• S.C. Citizen Review Panel, a community partnership that enlists professionals and advocates in Greenwood, Richland, and Charleston counties to oversee if the state Department of Social Services is effectively discharging its child protection responsibilities.
• Child Abuse and Neglect Interdisciplinary Training, a community outreach program that develops cooperative approaches to training staff at community service agencies.
• Dying Well, a community outreach project that provides information and support related to end-of-life issues and bereavement to African-American faith groups.
• HABLA, a Spanish interpretation and translation service staffed with bilingual USC students who field 600 calls for assistance every month from field office personnel at state DHEC and DSS offices.
• High School Equivalency Program, a community outreach program that helps migrant Spanish-speaking workers in Lexington, Lee, and Saluda counties in learning English and earning their high-school equivalency degrees.
• Assistance to the state Department of Social Services by evaluating the Primary Prevention Project, a parent education program for young families at risk for child abuse and neglect in six state counties.
• Evaluation of Family Friends, a community-based family intervention project in Oconee County that provides volunteer mentors and case management for low-income families to increase parenting skills.
• Collaboration with Richland School District One and several public agencies and community partners to evaluate the process, outcomes, and impact of initiatives promoting school safety and student performance.
• Consultation and evaluation services to the S.C. Department of Education's statewide character education initiative, which itself is supported by USC through graduate-level teacher training. Learn more about The Center for Child and Family Studies on the Web at http://www.sc.edu/ccfs/center.html.

Clinical Model Teachers Program

Clinical Model Teachers Program is a partnership with the USC Department of Physical Education and 25 local physical education teachers. USC department faculty meet annually with teachers to discuss new advances in the field and issues related to the experiences of pre-service teachers in student teaching. For more information, call the College of Education's Department of Physical Education at 803-777-3172.

Closing the Achievement Gap

The College of Education offers this outreach program to schools to assist teachers and administrators of poverty-level children. Full-day visitations to classrooms for eight weeks include demonstration teaching, observation, and intervention recommendation. For more information, contact the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies at 803-777-0323.

Engineering and Computing Education, Center for

The center, based in the College of Engineering and Computing, provides many valuable services, including:

• The Research Experience for Teachers is a school partnership between the college's Department of Mechanical Engineering and high-school teachers from Dreher, Dutch Fork, Keenan, and Battery Creek High Schools. For six weeks during the summer, high-school teachers conduct engineering research in the department's labs.
• The center also conducts the Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education program, which pairs engineering graduate students with elementary- and middle-school teachers in Richland School Districts One and Two and Lexington School District One to improve the teachers' abilities to use engineering applications to teach science.

Contact the Center for Engineering and Computing Education at 803-777-4185.

High School Athletic Training Outreach

This program puts graduate students in USC's physical education program to work as athletic trainers in Richland School District One schools and at Cardinal Newman High School. For more information, call the Department of Physical Education in the College of Education at 803-777-3172.

Higher Education Certificate

This certificate is specifically for technical and community college faculty and staff who receive courses in leadership development, taught by faculty from USC's College of Education, to help participants refine curricular and instructional practices. For more information, contact the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies at 803-777-3802.

LEAP—Leadership Education for Administrators Program

LEAP is an innovative program to recruit school principals. An intensive two years of graduate study and mentoring, LEAP is sponsored by the Pee Dee Education Center and the Pee Dee Education Foundation. The program was created to ensure an adequate supply of capable school leaders for Pee Dee region schools. For more information, contact the College of Education, Department of Educational Leadership and Policies at 803-777-3802.

Parenting Excellence

Four Head Start centers in South Carolina are participating in Parenting Excellence, a program sponsored by USC's psychology department and aimed at increasing parent-school involvement and teacher-parent communications. Contact Dr. Dawn Wilson, Department of Psychology in the College of Liberal Arts at 803-777-8032 for more information.

Physiology Teaching Conference

The USC School of Medicine sponsors this annual one-day meeting to assist high school and college teachers of biological sciences in improving their knowledge and teaching techniques. For more information, call 803-733-3200.

Professional Development School Network

USC’s College of Education partners with more than 80 schools in nine school districts in the Columbia area to help prepare individuals for careers in education. Education candidates receive invaluable on-the-job training, while the teachers with whom they work benefit from additional pairs of hands in the classroom as well as the opportunity to earn courses at USC. Ten of these schools have joined with the college in the USC Professional Development School Network, a collaborative resource-sharing initiative that, in addition to helping prepare future educators, also focuses on professional development and research opportunities for veteran teachers and administrators. The College of Education has been a national leader in the Professional Development School initiative since 1990 and has co-sponsored seven consecutive PDS National Conferences, the latest of which attracted more than 900 educators from 43 states. USC also played the lead role in the 2005 establishment of the National Association for Professional Development Schools, an organization that serves PDS educators nationwide through a newsletter, a Web site and knowledge repository, and, beginning in 2006, a refereed professional journal. The new association has already been praised for its work by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, and the National Network for Educational Renewal. For more information, call the College of Education’s Office of School-University Partnerships and Clinical Experiences at 803-777-5991.

Project Lead the Way

High school and middle school teachers in South Carolina have begun taking courses in USC’s College of Engineering and Computing to learn new techniques for teaching engineering fundamentals to their students. It's part of a national program called Project Lead the Way that's focused on getting more pre-college students interested in engineering careers. The program trains high school teachers and guidance counselors and allows high school students to earn up to six college credits. Project Lead the Way also addresses nationwide concerns about declining engineering enrollments and what that might mean for the nation's future. In South Carolina, the program puts engineering and engineering technology subjects in the high school and middle school curricula, and gets students thinking about career opportunities they might never have imagined. Before USC joined the consortium of universities involved in Project Lead the Way, S.C. high school teachers who wanted to teach engineering courses had to travel to the Rochester Institute of Technology for training. For more information, contact Charles Brice in the College of Engineering and Computing at 803-777-7049.

Role of the Principal in Special Education

This program is offered through the College of Education and provides staff development for school principals in Greenville, S.C. For more information, contact the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies at 803-777-3802.

Rural Family Guidance Center

The center provides services to children in Allendale County schools and their families to improve the relationship between families and the schools. The emphasis is on establishing a comprehensive school counseling program. For more information, contact the Department of Educational Psychology in the College of Education at 803-777-6585.

School-based Mental Health Services

Twenty graduate students from USC's College of Social Work serve as graduate assistants in public schools. Each student works for 920 hours each year in a public school with 15 students. The assistantships provide a valuable resource for the schools, while completing practical educational training for the graduate students. For more information about the program, contact the College of Social Work at 803-777-5291 or on the Web at www.cosw.sc.edu/.

South Carolina Geographic Alliance

An initiative of USC's Department of Geography in the College of Liberal Arts, the alliance provides the state's K-12 educators with professional development support that includes workshops, seminars, and high-tech teaching aids. More than 7,000 South Carolina educators are members of the Geographic Alliance. For more information, phone 803-777-4973.

South Carolina Physical Education Assessment Program

The S.C. Physical Education Assessment Program is administered by the Department of Physical Education in the College of Education and assesses school physical education programs in the state. In-service and training programs for teachers related to standards and assessment are offered. For more information, call the Department of Physical Education at 803-777-3172.

South Carolina School Improvement Council

The council serves 16,000 volunteers at work in more than 1,100 schools in the state. The S.C. School Improvement Council assists volunteers in the planning, monitoring, and reporting of school improvement and accountability efforts at their schools. Contact Jean Norman at 803-777-7658 for more information.

Success In Schools

This College of Education program assists students identified as "at risk" in Lexington/Richland District 5 schools. Students receive after-school counseling, tutoring, character education, and social and emotional development training. Their families receive consultation in child-rearing practices. These services are provided by a staff of counselors and social workers in cooperation with classroom teachers and community volunteers. For more information, contact the Department of Educational Psychology at 803-777-6585.

Teacher Quality Collaborative

This program is funded by the U.S. Department of Education and involves four institutions of higher learning: USC, Winthrop University, Furman University, and Benedict College, and their respective professional development school sites in 11 school districts across the state. For more information, call USC's Department of Instruction and Teacher Education in the College of Education at 803-777-6239, or visit http://tqc.ed.sc.edu/.