“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
In this Information Age where everything changes with the speed of light, Benjamin Franklin’s words are more relevant than ever before. Teachers are the heroes shaping our future innovators and for the 13th year in a row, Symantec will recognize a few of the influential educators out there – and you can play a part.
Honoring Innovators for 13 Years
In 2003, Symantec and Teach For America launched the [link] Symantec Innovation in Teaching Awards, recognizing outstanding Teach for America teachers who demonstrate original thinking and teamwork in the service of increasing student learning.
The awards were created to elevate innovative classroom practices that add value to students’ lives and help them reach their full potential. They are open to the more than 21,000 Teach for America corps members and alumni teachers. Educators submitted their innovations via an online application form and video.
Five outstanding teachers will receive a $1,000 personal award and a $1,500 resource grant to help scale their innovation, as well as an all-expenses paid trip to Teach For America's Alumni Educators Conference in July. Vote for your favorite! Our finalists include:
1. Blair Mishleau (Twin Cities ‘12) - Aggregating Diverse Data to Drive Success
Blair, a technology specialist, created the Student Success Snapshot, a student and family-friendly report which translates the vast and often complex data his current school in Washington, D.C. collects on student achievement. The report breaks down and transforms this data into conversation-starters for students and families around a student's goals and enables students to be empowered to take control of their learning.
2. Bobby Moore (Baltimore ’11) - Students Secure Funding to Further their Passions
Bobby created the online platform, Student Opportunities & Academic Resources (SOAR), to teach students the web-based communication and presentation skills that are paramount to their future success. SOAR enables students to showcase their talents, interests, and needs on the internet with new networks of people who can support and fund their ideas. The program officially launches late this spring, but has already engaged teachers and students through a series of beta-tests and partnerships.
3. Brittany Daley (Bay Area ‘13) - 3D Printer Powers Blended Learning
Through the implementation of a blended learning program, students in Brittany's second grade class are being exposed to new technology such as 3D printers to create their own innovations to improve the quality of life for others. This curriculum is empowering students to take control of their own learning and demonstrate how they can use their knowledge to create a better world.
4. Corbin McGhee (Arkansas ‘13) - Students Support Students through Mobile Apps
Corbin's ninth graders are creating cutting-edge apps that are more than just fun and games. These entrepreneurial students are partnering with teachers in other classrooms to create apps that are having a real impact on their schoolmates by aiding them with subjects they are struggling in.
5. David Gillis (New Jersey ’13) - Google Survey Turned into Engaging Interactive Worksheet
By combining Google Survey with his coding skills, David has created an interactive classroom worksheet system for his lessons that provides immediate feedback on student work and tracks their progress in real-time. The worksheet is already having a strong impact; since David started using it with his students, learning objective mastery has increased by 20 percent.
6. Hilah Barbot (New Orleans ’09) - College Writing Buddies Close Writing Achievement Gap
A partnership with freshman at Tulane University has Hilah's fifth- through eighth-grade students improving their writing skills in a fun and interactive way. Her program, College Writing Buddies (CWB), physically and virtually pairs her students and university students to bridge the writing achievement gap. Through CWB, students are increasing their writing ability, academic confidence, and digital communication skills.
7. Lauren Fine (St. Louis ‘05) - Students Create Social Impact Solutions
Lauren's program, Little People, BIG Changes, empowers youth to make changes both locally at her current school in Colorado, and abroad. Her program cultivates and supports ideas of elementary students and encourages them to be thoughtful, community-minded citizens. Together her children have helped increase literacy rates in their school through partnering with a local Early Childhood Education program, sent shoes to children in Mexico, and helped work on access to education globally through sending children to school in Ghana.
8. Manas Kulkarni (Bay Area ’13) - Technology Fuels International Student Success
Manas works with international/newcomer students who often have been in the country less than a month, may have no formal education, and speak little-to-no English. To help level the playing field, he uses technology to create a common language for students to work together to solve Algebra problems. His use of technology has not only contributed to academic growth, but also created a positive reinforcement system that is accessible to all students, no matter what their language.
9. Rachel Weislow (Massachusetts ’13) - Storybook Café Pushes ESL Students to Tell Their Story and Increases Language Skills
Storybook Cafe is a unique program created by Rachel where ESL students work to compose their own stories ranging from holiday tales to culturally relevant fairytales, to their own family immigration stories. After crafting these stories, students are joined by staff and family members for a special read-aloud event four times a year. The program has dramatically grown students’ abilities in reading, writing, speaking, and listening, in addition to helping families play a more active role in their student’s learning.
10. Staci Childs (Houston ’13) - Special Camp Creates Behavior Change
EDGE is a daily after school program where students engage in a variety of activities that range from exercise to art, and from cooking and nutrition – in addition to holding discussions centered on social justice. Staci created the program after seeing an increase in the amount of school suspensions within her elementary school. The program creates opportunities for kids to direct their energy into dynamic afterschool activities and thus hopefully increase positive behavior during the school day. Staci’s pilot programs are seeing incredible success - since inception, no participants of the program have been suspended or referred for behavior problems at their respective schools.
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Symantec’s Longest Standing Non-Profit Partner
Since 1997, Symantec has partnered with Teach for America, a national non-profit that recruits, trains and supports top college graduates and career-changing professionals to commit to teaching in under-resourced urban and rural public schools. The partnership brings together two organizations promoting innovation in teaching, so that all children have access to an excellent education that will help prepare them for opportunities in school and in life.
“K-12 education plays a powerful role in children’s academic, career, and personal outcomes – and every child deserves access to a high-quality education,” says Cecily Joseph, vice president of Corporate Responsibility at Symantec. “Across all subjects and disciplines, we believe that effective teaching requires innovation. We’re thrilled to support the 2015 Symantec Innovation in Teaching Awards again, as these teachers work to expand their impact and open doors for their students.”
Supporting diversity in STEM
Symantec and Teach For America are committed to working toward the day when all students will have access to the educational opportunities that will prepare them for success in college and careers. Since 2008, Symantec has been a critical partner in fostering diversity for the program – enabling Teach For America to recruit, train, and support a diverse corps of our nation’s emerging leaders to commit to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. In 2014, Teach For America welcomed its most diverse corps ever, including 50 percent of incoming teachers who identify as people of color, 47 percent who are Pell Grant recipients (a reliable indicator of low-income background), and one-third who come to the corps with graduate school or professional experience.
Over the course of the relationship, Symantec's support for TFA has surpassed $4 million, helping to empower more than 32,000 TFA teachers and alumni who have positively impacted the academic trajectories for more than 3 million children since 1991.
For more information on Symantec’s support of STEM education, visit the community investment section of the Corporate Responsibility website.