Rossier MAT program team wins Weintraub Faculty Prize

Four faculty members from the USC Rossier School of Education Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program comprise the winning team of the first Weintraub Faculty Prize for innovative use of technology for learning.

The team consists of Anthony Maddox, Althea Nixon, John Pascarella and Brendesha Tynes. The award-winning entry, the Technology in Education Collaborative Hub (TECH), is an archive of teaching and learning tools and resources around the latest innovations and uses of technology and media in education. TECH will initially focus on STEM content areas and will grow to provide a cross-content Teacher Learning Community (TLC) for teachers to design, create, and critique digital content for teaching and learning.

The $10,000 prize was established this year by Los Angeles-based educational entrepreneur Roberta Weintraub. A member of the Los Angeles Board of Education for 14 years and president for three years, Weintraub was instrumental in instituting many forward-looking educational programs including the highly successful Magnet school program now embraced by over 160 school sites. Among the early advocates of technology in education, she was also the founder and executive director of HighTechHigh LA.

Weintraub has also established the Weintraub Student Prize for Innovative Technology and Teaching, a $5,000 award for up to three Rossier MAT students who submit the best multi-media literacy based projects. Those winners will be announced in December.

USC Rossier’s MAT program has grown from an 80-student on-campus cohort three years ago to enrollment of nearly 1600 with the 2009 launch of the online MAT@USC.  The internationally recognized program now has students in 43 states and 25 countries.

The selection committee for the Weintraub Faculty Prize included Rossier faculty members Morgan Polikoff, Darline Robles, and Alan Green, as well as MIS Director Pixie Boyden, Educational Program Designer Ryan Best and MAT Program Director Erika Klein.