K-12 Educational Development

Students at Victory Collegiate Academy wanted to build a tiny house as a project. But they wondered, how would a tiny house help their community? So, instead, they decided to tackle a problem they discovered at their school. They found out 30% of the students at the academy, which is in the heart of Maryvale, do not have access to running water. Their solution was to build the first free, mobile, laundry. The project won the school the Canyon Challenge Grant, presented Tuesday at the Canyon Showcase by K12 Educational Development. The school received $11,000, including last night’s $2,000 grant. It was just one of 20 projects by eight schools who participated in the Showcase in a “public display of learning” from three of the department’s education and STEM initiatives — the STEM Impact Grant, STEM Ready 1 and Canyon Inquiry.

About 3,000 eighth- and ninth-graders from 10 Maryvale schools connected with their community Thursday at GCU Arena during the HERO U Convention — the kickoff of a three-part youth development program created by the Maryvale Revitalization Corporation, one of the University’s partners in transforming the community around GCU. About 750 Canyon Christians Schools Consortium Scholars also were there to volunteer and show their support. Said Dr. Jennifer Johnson, Director of Academic Alliances for Grand Canyon Education, “It’s yet another example of all of us wrapping our arms around all of the kids in the community to make sure they know about their opportunities and that people really care about them.”

Adriana Quintanares moved to the United States when she was 4 years old, not speaking a word of English. She remembers her immigrant parents buying her a dictionary and looking up every word — every single word — to help her understand her homework. “My family, of course — and God — have kept me going,” said the GCU biology junior. Juan Colorado-Alvarez spoke about those school lunches no one seemed to like very much. He looked forward to them; sometimes those school lunches were the only meals he would eat. His immigrant parents, who worked two jobs each, constantly struggled to make it paycheck to paycheck. Quintanares and Colorado-Alvarez, a junior accounting major, reached deep and shared their hardships and how the Students Inspiring Students scholarship changed their lives at Tuesday’s SIS scholarship reception.

Being a teacher these days encompasses so much more than leading a classroom lesson. They also are on the front line as community leaders who must support students in many other ways. They furthered their education on trauma-informed education Friday at the Making T.I.E.S. Conference in GCU Arena by learning how to help students who may be experiencing a crisis in their lives, from bullying to relationship struggles, a stressful home life, abuse and more. “Schools are seeing a tremendous need to be informed and ready to help kids of trauma as they enter the classroom,” said Corinne Araza, Director of K12 Development. It was the first conference on trauma-informed educational support organized by GCU.

Hundreds of high school students on more than 40 teams descended Friday and Saturday on GCU Arena to compete in the Arizona West Regional FIRST Robotics Competition, where they unleashed their robots on the field of play. Their mission in the space-themed competition: Fill their spaceships with valuable payload using, of course, their robots. One group volunteering at the event was GCU’s Thunderbots. Said Thunderbots advisor Ed Koeneman, who teaches electrical engineering technology, “It’s important for high school students to see that college kids are continuing on in this fun world of robotics.”

The GCU Robotics Club overcame a lot of challenges in the 2018-19 competition season — challenges that haven’t slowed down the club one bit. The Thunderbots are gearing up for their STEM Bonanza workshop on Saturday for fourth- through eighth-graders. They’ll be making oobleck, a slime-type substance that somehow acts as a liquid and a solid, and they’ll be unraveling codes with wheel cyphers. The Thunderbots are also getting ready to volunteer at the big FIRST Robotics regional competition at GCU Arena April 5-6.

Washington High School senior Juan Ballez has watched his father struggle with mobility in his hand and, for years, wished there was a way he could help. Now, on the cusp of graduating, he thinks he knows a way — by becoming a biomedical engineer. His dream of helping people, like his father, came closer to fruition Tuesday at GCU, when he found out he was one of 43 students in the neighborhood surrounding GCU to receive the Students Inspiring Students scholarship. “It feels like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders,” said Juan after receiving the scholarship, which covers four years of tuition and books. “… I was determined. I was like, I can’t have my parents pay for it (college). I don’t want that burden on them.”

The Learning Lounge is making an immediate impact on students at Westwood Elementary. Based on first semester test results, 50 percent of the third and fourth grade math students improved by one to two grade levels as opposed to no grade level growth among students at a control group school. Targeted lessons developed by Learning Lounge leaders and implemented in small group instruction by GCU students, known as LEADs (Learning Advocates), are paying off.

College of Education students from Grand Canyon University are taking advantage of an innovative pre-service resident teaching program that enables them to create and implement lesson plans and work directly with students on an accelerated basis. These benefits are evident at Westwood Elementary, where GCU students are putting educational theory into practice.

GCU’s Academic Excellence Site (AES) partnership with Westwood Elementary is multi-faceted, from a pre-service resident teaching program to the Learning Lounge, Canyon Professional Development, Leadership Coaching and Parent View. Among the many positive results: Westwood students are building skills, gaining momentum and developing a vision for higher education.