FGCU, Lee County schools partnership aims to bring more teachers, individualized learning

Students at Lee County schools are already getting hands on learning, but a new initiative would take it a step further, tailor making lessons to individual students K-12.

“We will be able to understand better how children learn at every level from every background,” said Florida Gulf Coast University President Mike Martin.

“No other time in history are we able to differentiate learning and adapt learning for individual students,” Martin said. “We have technology out there that we never would have envisioned 20 years ago.”

The initiative brings FGCU into Lee County classrooms.

“We See that professors will be there in that building first with interns but also helping to inform and articulate what we need to do from an instruction standpoint in our schools,” said Wanda Creel, chief academic officer of Lee County schools.

FGCU student Katherine Coakley is already a Lee County schools intern.

“It’s amazing to see how much more progress they make when instead of everybody getting the same thing we can reach them at their level,” Coakley said.

This new plan is also meant to attract education majors like Coakley to get jobs and stay in Southwest Florida schools.

“A lot of (it) has to do with finding ways to anchor very good people here so they have satisfying jobs as teachers,” Martin said.

Coakely said she’s excited to be part of the process.

“I know a lot of teachers who are innovators want to get on the ground floor of that and they want to learn and change with their students as well,” Coakley said.

The initiative is already being implemented at Bonita Springs High School, and Superintendent Greg Adkins says it will quickly spread to all schools.