The University of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) Program and Curriki, a nonprofit, online environment for creating and sharing education resources, announced that their joint Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment (CI&A) Initiative has been awarded a grant of $436,000 by the Connecticut-based Louis Calder Foundation. The CI&A Initiative is an innovative model of professional development made possible by the burgeoning partnership between Curriki and ACE, giving Master teachers and principals in Catholic schools the opportunity to create and share educational resources in new ways. Piloted with teachers and principals in Memphis, Tennessee, and Pensacola, Florida, CI&A utilizes the benefits of technology and Curriki’s easy-to-use online tools to maximize the knowledge and skills of master teachers, and to give them leadership roles in the development and sharing of curricula.

The three-year series of workshops ACE sponsors through its CI&A Initiative begins by guiding the master teachers in the creation of virtual learning communities using Curriki, a free on-line environment that uses wiki technology to allow members---typically educators and education experts---to develop and distribute high-quality education materials to anyone who needs them. Participants spend successive years planning instruction and assessment to coincide with the curricula they create. Using the best of a “bottom-up” approach, the teachers then receive feedback on their work from experts in curriculum and instruction at the university level.

According to Tom Doyle, Director of the ACE M.Ed. and architect of CI&A, “This pioneering partnership blends university resources with Curriki’s innovative technology is yet another example of how Notre Dame and ACE are at the cutting edge of educational renewal and reform in this country.”

This partnership with the Calder Foundation and the pioneering Web-based curriculum program, Curriki, represents a milestone for ACE in its efforts to foster academic excellence in Catholic schools.

About ACE

Founded in 1994, The University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) sustains and strengthens Catholic schools through leadership formation, research, and professional services. Each year, ACE recruits and prepares approximately 100 talented college graduates to teach in under-resourced Catholic schools, where they spend two years modeling lives of faith and service to the students in their classrooms. The ACE Leadership Program also forms more leaders for Catholic schools than any other program in the country. Through these and other programs, ACE seeks to revitalize the great tradition of Catholic schools to provide children – often immigrant and at-risk children – with an outstanding education in mind and spirit. More information on these and other ACE programs are available on the Web at http://ace.nd.edu.