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Admissions Application Process Informational Meetings for Undergraduate Teacher Education Student
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The mission of the School of Education states in part that it serves Kansas, the nation, and the world by..."helping society define and respond to its educational responsibilities and challenges.... To accomplish this mission, the School of Education... provides a wide range of professional services to schools, other institutions, and individuals." One of the major vehicles that the School uses to meet this public service responsibility is through its Institute for Educational Research and Public Service.
The School of Education Research Support Funding Program is intended to assist tenure-track and tenured faculty to be successful in their research and extramural funding endeavors.
The University of Kansas America Reads Challenge program is part of a larger, national campaign initiated by President Bill Clinton to help "at-risk" students develop reading skills. University of Kansas America Reads Tutors are Federal Work Study award recipients and work exclusively in Title 1 elementary schools in the Lawrence USD 497 school district with at risk students on improving their reading skills. Tutors read aloud to students, prepare lessons to build reading skills, and provide students with an opportunity to practice reading. Additionally, Tutors serve a positive role model, offering encouragement and motivation to become life long readers.
The Institute for Educational Research and Public Service, established in 1997, serves both the School of Education faculty members and the State of Kansas. This Institute has a two-fold mission. The first part of this mission is to provide faculty with infrastructure support for its research. The support includes assistance with identifying funding sources, proposal development, and grant administration. The second part of the Institute's mission is to help schools and other educational agencies respond to initiatives that are educationally beneficial to the State of Kansas and that contribute to the teaching, research, and service missions of the School. The Institute also houses the Assembly of Equity Programs, TRIO programs, and the Kansas Enrichment Network. At the heart of these programs lies an interest in promoting educational opportunity for youth and young adults in the state.
The Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation established a partnership with all Kansas schools, both public and private, beginning in 1980 with the first state mandated assessment. Communication with teachers, building principals, test coordinators and superintendents takes place several times each year through registration, survey and assessment activities. The Center also visits select schools yearly to conduct pilot testing, and regularly brings in teachers from across the state to participate in scoring sessions for the Kansas assessment performance activities.
The University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning (KU-CRL) conducts research that focuses on solving the problems that limit individuals' quality of life and their ability to learn and perform in school, work, home, or the community. KU-CRL is concerned with the validation of assessment and instructional practices that can be used with broadly diverse groups. It is committed to translating the procedures it validates into instructional materials and products that practitioners can use. KU-CRL operates an international network to train educators throughout the world to use the products of its research. Through both its research and training missions, KU-CRL has developed a broad array of working partnerships with hundreds of schools, school districts, and state departments of education. Since its inception, KU-CRL has engaged in research agreements with hundreds of educational entities and has trained in excess of 200,000 practitioners in more than 4,000 school districts to use its materials and procedures.
The Beach Center on Disability is affiliated with the School of Education's Department of Special Education and the Schiefelbusch Life Span Institute. Professors Ann Turnbull and Rud Turnbull from the Department of Special Education serve as the Center's Co-directors. Professors Wayne Sailor and Michael Wehmeyer serve as the Associate Directors. Primary foci of Beach Center research include assistive technology, disability policy, family-professional partnerships, family quality of life, health care, foster care and adoption, positive behavior support, and self-determination. The Beach Center has maintained a steadfast commitment to making a difference for persons with disabilities and their families. The Beach Center is committed to listening to the priorities of families, incorporating family priorities into the Center's research agenda, to carry out research in a participatory way, and to ensure that the research makes a meaningful and sustainable difference in the lives of families who have children with disabilities.
The Center for Psychoeducational Services operates under the umbrella of the KU School of Education and is a training site for School of Education students in the Departments of Psychology and Research in Education, Special Education, and Teaching and Leadership. CPS is staffed by student clinicians in school psychology, counseling psychology, reading, special education, and other education fields who earn credit while they gain practical experience working directly with clients. All student clinicians are supervised by faculty who are certified or licensed in their fields. CPS is a self-sustaining, non-profit agency within the School of Education at the University of Kansas.
