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Fourth-grade teacher Amanda Bray spent the past weekend in cheering competitions and playoff football games to support her students.
In Immokalee, where Bray taught for seven years at Lake Trafford Elementary School, she is part of the family, she said.
“Immokalee is like my second home,” Bray said. “I really like it here.”
For Bray, she wants to make proud the families who have welcomed her.
Bray was one of 60 teachers representing 58 schools in Collier County to be recognized with a Teachers of Distinction award from Champions For Learning on Tuesday. From this list, a selection committee will choose six teachers for a Golden Apple Award.
Each Collier County school can nominate a teacher and that teacher’s best practices. Teachers receive a $ 250 award, a nomination for a Golden Apple Award, and participate in networking to share their practices with other teachers.
Who is your school’s teacher of distinction? The Collier Education Foundation released the list
Learning Champions:Has your Collier teacher received a Champions For Learning grant? Here is the full list
Pictures:Champions For Learning scholarships awarded to teachers
In her classroom, Bray transforms her space into different experiences, like Multiplication Inc. based on Disney’s Monster Inc., because she wants her students to be more involved in learning.
“You learn more when you have a memory to go with it rather than just memorizing things,” Bray said. “I always try to make my class memorable for the children.”
At Eden Park Elementary, Monica Drew creates leaders in her freshman class.
One of those leaders is 6-year-old Jason Gomez. He takes his role as a teaching assistant seriously.
He sharpens pencils, writes the date and mission on the board, and plugs in their classroom laptops.
“I have to do my job,” Gomez said.
His students, like Gomez, are motivated to be responsible for themselves, so Drew uses his best practices that keep leadership exercises at the forefront.
“They all have these little motivations in them, and that’s what I want to bring out,” Drew said.
Drew said she hopes her students will take what they are learning and take what they learn home.
“Yes, they’re only six and seven, but they’re capable of so much and if they can do it here imagine what they can do when they get older, not just in school and in the city. community and in their homes, ”Drew said. “That’s why I’m doing it.”
Ashley Wippel’s ninth grade students at Immokalee High School engage in a conversation on topics where they can freely share their opinions, she said.
“They may disagree with their opinions, but they’re always prepared and it’s nice to see them motivated,” Wippel said.
Wippel, who started teaching at Collier schools eight years ago, said she tries to empower her students to be confident in their own abilities.
Wippel said she loved teaching Immokalee so much that she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
In more than 20 years of technical career and education, Immokalee Technical College Executive Director Dorin Oxender said he had never met a better instructor than Robert Boyle.
“She’s a rock star,” Oxender said.
Boyle began teaching the Heavy Equipment Maintenance Technician program at Immokalee Technical College three years ago.
In the program, which has a 100% placement rate, Boyle said he expects excellence from his students.
“I’m trying to teach them that in order to progress in this area, to be successful in this area, you have to learn all the time,” Boyle said.
His practice has his students in class start working on reading, quizzes, and open discussion of practices, and then he begins hands-on labs, like Tearing Motors.
“We do hands-on labs using all the tools and equipment they would normally use in the field,” Boyle said.
Boyle, who worked as a heavy equipment technician for more than 35 years, said he was “deeply and honestly moved” by the recognition.
“It means a lot to me to be recognized for what I do,” Boyle said. “But more importantly, that my program be recognized for what it does because it’s not just me, it’s the school. It’s the students. It’s all my sponsors, my employer sponsors. mean they all have a big part of it. “
The Naples Daily News is a major sponsor of Champions For Learning.
Rachel Fradette is an educational reporter for the Naples Daily News. Follow her on Twitter: @Rachel_Fradette, email him at [email protected]
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