Professional Development and Children's Programs

The Department of Curriculum and Instruction offers professional development opportunities for practitioners and programs for young people each year. Some offer year-round enrollment. Others are annual or occasional offerings with schedules and application deadlines detailed at their links.

Professional Development

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Family Service and Research Clinic — serves the underserved, exceptional populations of Northwest Arkansas through behavior analytic methodology, and students accumulate supervised experience requirement hours.

Arkansas A+ Schools — is a research-based whole-school network with a mission of nurturing creativity in every learner through integrated arts, providing schools with ongoing professional development, support and research.

Arkansas Professors of Educational Leadership — is dedicated to the education of school district administrators in the state. Membership includes faculty from 10 university educational administration programs preparing school, district and central office administrators.

ARteachers — is a jobs database for educators and school districts in Arkansas.

ASD and DD Symposium — University of Arkansas Symposium on Autism Spectrum Disorders and Developmental Disabilities — is offered in the spring for continuing education units.

Center for Children and Youth — addresses intellectual growth, social development, literacy, the arts and techniques for addressing poverty through teacher professional development, pre-service education and research as well as curriculum development and dissemination.

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Institute — provides PK-12 teachers with training to meet the educational needs of students for whom English is a second language.

ESL Symposia — enhances the skills of education professionals to assist students in additional academic language development through English as a Second Language — and generally held in the early spring for CEUs.

Grow Your Own (GYO) Educators Convening — focuses on innovative pathways to address teacher shortages — both generally and in critical areas such as special education and multilingual teachers.

IMPACT Arkansas Fellowship — is a 15-month fully subsidized program for a Master of Education in Educational Leadership, which prepares qualified future administrators of low-income schools throughout Arkansas.

Office of Innovation for Education — based on the Fayetteville campus and funded by the Arkansas Department of Education, collaborates with public schools, districts, educators and organizations across the state of Arkansas and beyond to ensure a measurable impact for all learners.

Project REACH — comprises a grant that funds qualified K-5 teachers to become ESL-endorsed and have an opportunity to earn a graduate certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages through a hybrid online program. Details on ESL improvement grants.

Project SOAR — provides K-12 Arkansas educators with professional development to increase their knowledge and skills to better serve English Learners (ELs) and culturally linguistically diverse (CLD) students. Details on ESL improvement grants.

UCEA Center for Leadership in Law and Education is a research and action center focusing on how the law impacts schools via studying, educating, disseminating and influencing.

Children's Programs

Clinic for Literacy — through seasonal literacy camps provides K-6 students opportunities for improved achievement in reading and writing.

Northwest Arkansas Writing Project — focusing on improving writing in area schools — provides professional development for educators and directly reaches young writers through summer camps and other activities.

Project Connect — serves as an outreach program for families and others seeking autism spectrum specific resources in the community with the Project Connect Autism Resource Guide, Parents' Night Out and in Camp Connect.