Partnering with the Tarrant Institute provides schools with the support to enact student-driven, technology-rich, 21st-century learning.

On October 1, 2014, the Tarrant Foundation announced a $5 million gift to the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education, increasing the Institute's annual budget to $1.5 million. The new funding has allowed the Institute to more than double the number of Vermont schools it is able to serve.

Middle-level faculty at the University of Vermont and the Tarrant Foundation first collaborated in 2006 around a common interest in engaging young adolescents in technology-rich learning. The success of their early initiatives led to the establishment of the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education in 2009. The Tarrant Foundation's $5 million gift to the University established the Tarrant Institute for 10 years. In 2014 the Tarrant Foundation announced an additional gift: another $5 million in funding, allowing the Institute to triple its capacity and reach as many as 40 Vermont schools in the next five years.

The Tarrant Institute initially gave schools the funds to acquire technology and provided an intensive professional development program. It was designed to help them integrate teaching practices known to engage middle school students with technology. Since then netbooks, tablets, interactive white boards, and other technologies have become so common in Vermont schools that the Tarrant Institute now devotes most of its resources and expertise to providing comprehensive, multi-year professional development. Institute staff work intensively with teachers and administrators — during the summer and throughout the school year — helping schools develop an infrastructure that supports effective middle school teaching practices and a culture that sustains educational innovation.

The Institute currently partners with 32 schools around Vermont.

The Tarrant Institute has embarked on the largest longitudinal research study on educational technology in Vermont. They have also hosted Vermont's first computer coding camp for educators and students, modeling side-by-side educator and student learning of programming languages.

The Tarrant Institute collaborates with the Burlington & Winooski Partnership for Change and the Middle Grades Collaborative.

For more information and interview requests, please contact Communications Director Audrey Homan at tiie@uvm.edu or (802) 656-2641.