FEATURED
Teacher of the Week
Kyair Butts
Middle School Teacher, Baltimore Public Schools (MD)
@kyairb @BaltCitySchools
Kyair Butts is very deserving of this award. Once schools closed, he immediately began thinking of ways to continue engaging his students and to keep learning happening. He researched and began using Zoom to hold synchronous classes with his student, often 60-90 min. He varies his lessons between English and social emotional learning concepts. He has mastered the use on the breakout room feature to promote student discussion and continued collaboration. Additionally, he didn't just keep all of this knowledge to himself. He promoted student successes on social media AND hosted a Zoom session to teacher others and model how to use Zoom to continue remote learning. The session was attended by over 65 people. Kyair is a leader and an innovator. He truly cares about student learning and is not afraid to try new tech to get it done.
Melissa Woodbridge
ES/MS Teacher, Bailey Gatzert School, Seattle Public Schools
@SeaPubSchools
This teacher is my colleague and she is in her first year of teaching at a title 1 school. My school is in the top 5 for the largest homeless student population in our district. She will be my 4th partner in 5 years, because the job just simply is not that easy. She has come right in and has been teaching like an experienced veteran. She follows my lead and also brings a lot of wisdom and creativity to our planning and preparation together. Heading into her second year and thinking about her students for 2020-2021, We have been trying to come up with materials that we can create into take home packets for our families (only about 20% of our students have access to the internet). Being able to use that money in order to get learning workbooks from Lakeshore Learning or something like this we can make copies for our students who do not have internet access.
David Wise
MS/HS Math Teacher, Gwinnett Online Campus
@GwinnettSchools
Mr. Wise is a first-year online teacher and has quite literally jumped into the deep end of online learning. As an ambassador of digital learning, he is truly gifted at supporting his colleagues across the district as they are learning how to embrace this new teaching and learning platform. On a weekly basis, he co-hosts live informational sessions to provide face-to-face teachers resources, tips, and best practices for online learning. Additionally, he is keenly intuitive to his students' academic, emotional, and social needs, organizing countless virtual sessions to reinforce their learning and provide opportunities for casual, monitored socialization. Mr. Wise truly goes above and beyond in all he does to shine each day!
In David’s words:
My biggest success is the amount of online technology I've used and how I'm growing in confidence with our virtual meeting platform and the virtual sessions. It takes some time to get used to; not just the program and interface, but also delivering high-quality seamless instruction. This virus situation has forced me to get out of my comfort zone and accelerate my learning curve. I was forced to use it more often in order to provide my kids with online instruction. This was a great thing because now I feel far more confident that I could use it more often in many different situations. Each week, I host three 1-hour sessions with my 4th-grade kids, two 1-hour virtual learning labs with my 6th graders along with an extra "Fun Friday Social Science Session" and two 1-hour virtual learning labs with my 7th graders. I'm also using the virtual meeting room for help sessions as needed and troubleshooting with students when they're having issues with technology or the courses.
Alejandro de la Peña
Parkland Middle School
@MaestroDeLaPena
I decided to be a SPED Teacher. I earned a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Special Education. My light began to glow and I started to drive away the darkness. In my first district, I was a campus Teacher of the Year for gathering about $10K in donations in my first 4 years and invited to be an inspirational speaker. When I moved to my current district, I decided to turn it up. I created NspirED@thePark to spread inspiration through local stories and SEL@thePark Awards to appreciate the positive impact our own community members. I am spearheading grant writing at my school and have obtained almost $40K in just 2 years. Above all, I strive to give my students the best opportunities to amaze even themselves and prove to others that disabilities do not define them, but I do help them defy their disabilities.
Seth El Jamal
Director-Prevention and Intervention Services at Illinois Collaboration on Youth, Chicago, IL
Seth El-Jamal, program director for the Chicago chapter of Friends of the Children, which aims to break the cycle of poverty by mentoring at-risk kids on Chicago’s West Side. Seth joined to Friends of the Children – Chicago in 2018 bringing nearly 20 years of experience in Youth Development. After graduating from University of Illinois with his Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, Seth began working with youth, creating safe, valid, and productive mentoring and youth development programs within Chicago’s under-served communities. In 2011, after completing his Master of Arts in Human Services, Seth transitioned from case management and after school program management to community outreach and program development. During his time at Friends, Seth has worked to implement the Friends Program Model within the Chicago Chapter and build connections within the Austin and North Lawndale Communities.
This hero wants to give at-risk kids a sense of normalcy during the pandemic – Chicago Business