UTC Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education

Educator and Leader Preparation

Equipping future teachers and school leaders with cutting-edge training, hands-on experience, and support to meet the needs of today's classrooms.

Literacy Instruction

Advancing research-driven approaches to reading education, helping students build strong literacy foundations that shape academic success.

Policy and Technical Support

Providing expertise to schools and districts on best practices, curriculum development, and leadership strategies to improve educational outcomes.

HCS Engagement Schools/Labs

The CEIE and the School of Education will work and learn from our lab schools of engagement. We will work with teachers, administration, and staff to support their learning communities.

Innovative Approaches to Solve Problems in Our Public Schools

Creating new ways to educate and engage students, teachers, and administrators to develop an approach to design thinking.

October 2025 Advisory Meeting - 

Our Literacy First Tutors Program at Brown Academy is showing growth and receiving resoundingly positive feedback. The student tutors are concluding Week 9 of the program as of October 24. The tutors are learning behavior management and how to utilize data to plan lessons and design them more accurately for each student at their current level. This real time data combined with strategic lesson plans has promoted growth among majority of the students.

Once per semester, Dr. Stewart and the UTC tutors sit down for a data meeting and discuss each student and how they've grown. While hard data is shared at this meeting, these meetings are also a time of reflection. The tutors share stories about their experiences with each student and celebrate their wins, like how each student is connecting with learning which is helping them connect with their peers and community. 

Surveys taken by tutors and non-tutors have found that the tutors feel much more confident in their understanding of literacy in both their coursework and experiences compared to non-tutors. Non-tutors felt like they lacked a deep field experience opportunity before Residency (student teaching), while the tutors shared that they feel well supported and feel they will already be better prepared for teaching after having this tutoring experience so early in their program. 

Due to the program's overall success, the advisory is already looking into expanding this program to reach broader educational needs around the community.  

The Center is currently working on a new ESL Program partnering with Hamilton County Schools and the UTC School of Education. This program would provide a competitive pathway to help fill open teaching positions in our community schools. Non-traditional students will highly benefit from this asynchronous program, while also providing students with synchronous opportunities. More meetings about this program will be coming soon.

May 2025 Advisory Meeting

The advisory committee had a great brainstorming session and created four scrum groups where many members volunteered to contribute their knowledge and expertise. In each scrum group, advisory members will work together to dive deeper into the core of the Center and determine next steps in regard to their chosen group(s). The advisory committee will meet back up in July to discuss each group's findings and ideas.

Scrum Groups:

• Literacy
• Teacher Training & Pipeline
• Leadership Pathways
• Policy & Systems