College Distinction provides exceptional current Arkansas Tech students an opportunity to challenge themselves academically and gain recognition for their outstanding work in the college classroom.
Students with at least sixty hours of college credit and thirty hours of course work at Arkansas Tech with a minimum 3.5 GPA are invited to participate in the program. Students who accept the invitation to pursue College Distinction will have the opportunity to take two courses designated as distinction courses.
The first is an enrichment course. This course provides an extra educational experience related to the student’s field of study and could include, among other experiences, study abroad, internship, service learning, or mentor-guided research.
The second is an enhanced capstone course. This course demonstrates a student’s ability to work at an exceptional level in a given field and is enhanced by an advanced or accelerated curriculum.
Students’ successful completion of the course requirements and a graduating GPA of 3.5 or better will allow for graduation “with distinction.” This will be noted on student transcripts and diplomas.
Each department will identify distinction courses for each major. Once a student has completed a College Distinction Letter of Intention in Elementary Education, Middle Level Education, or Secondary Education; the student, his or her advisor, and the Curriculum and Instruction department head will meet to specifically delineate the College Distinction expectations.
The general College Distinction requirements for these students will involve two initiatives completed during the internship experience to encourage school and community improvement through the efforts of the teacher education candidate during his or her internship experience.
First, the student will initiate, facilitate, and participate in a service learning project of need within their internship placement site community. This service learning effort is to engage the students within the placement school as well as other interested participants.
Second, the student will meet with appropriate administrators, teachers, and/or directors to examine the internship placement school’s Arkansas Comprehensive School Improvement Plan (ACSIP) improvement needs and will provide a research-based paper for presentation addressing one or more identified needs.
A presentation will be completed within the internship placement school setting. To accomplish this goal, the student intern will meet with his or her major advisor during the internship experience to assist in specifying topic exploration and available resources and to determine processes to effectively present this information to stakeholders within the intern’s placement school setting.
Through these efforts, the student intern will assist in the improvement of both the school and the community in which he or she completes the internship experience.
After completing these two goals, the student intern will document these experiences and will present these results to his or her university supervisor and to other interested stakeholders within the university setting.
