This project represents a package for beginning teachers that is being developed by a partnership of faculty in the Elementary Teacher Education Program at the College of Education and Social Services, the University of Vermont (UVM), the Vermont State Department of Education, and the International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation.

Since 1995, the IBM Corporation has worked with the Vermont Department of Education through a grant initiative entitled Reinventing Education. This initiative, IBM’s Learning Village, (referred to in Vermont as Standards into Action) serves as a web based set of tools that promote communication, sharing of resources, and standards based units and activities. Feedback on this project revealed that school districts can more effectively implement standards-based reform with the support of institutions of higher education. A new grant initiative, entitled Reinventing Education III (RE3) is providing a framework for collaboration across Institutions of Higher Education and K-12 organizations with specific emphasis on improving the quality of teacher preservice and inservice programs. New features have been added to the original SIA (Standards into Action) tool setentitled Reinventing Education III (RE3) is providing a framework for collaboration across Institutions of Higher Education and K-12 organizations with specific emphasis on improving the quality of teacher preservice and inservice programs. New features have been added to the original SIA (Standards into Action) tool set and activities .

This pilot was proposed to demonstrate how a successful teaching methodology, Complex Instruction, can use the SIA tools to support video episodes, discussion, hyperlinks, and graphics to structure the sequence and development of a teaching strategy.