Making Learning Personal

Mary Ahalt, Deer Crossing Elementary School

Lindsay Anderson, Walkersville Middle School

Mariah Beaucage, West Frederick Middle School

Katie Bittle Middletown Primary School

Amy Brower, Walkersville Middle School

Alena Carter, Centerville Elementary School

Hannah Constable, Sugarloaf Elementary School

Jessica Cook, Hillcrest Elementary School

Nicole Dills, Crestwood Middle School

Crystal Dorsey, West Frederick Middle School

Jennifer Evans, New Market Middle School

Christina Eyler, Monocacy Elementary School

Kathryn Flynn, West Frederick Middle School

Erica French, Brunswick Middle School

Kathy Goldstein, New Market Elementary School

Heather Green, Walkersville Elementary School

Jennifer Greger, Middletown High School

Tyler Hanson, Tuscarora High School

Kristen Herr, Oakdale Middle School

Emily Johnson, New Market Elementary School

Heather Kehr, West Frederick Middle School

Larissa Keller, Emmitsburg Elementary School

Kristen Kidd, Frederick High School

Candace King, Hillcrest Elementary School

Brenda Kurtianyk, Accelerated Achievement and Equity

Charlotte Landahl, Accelerated Achievement and Equity

Ann Lewis, Urbana High School

Lorraine Marshall, Career and Technology Center

Angelique Merkson, Catoctin High School

Brittany Nuse, Valley Elementary School

Michelle Packard, Centerville Elementary School

Lindsay Pallansch, North Frederick Elementary School

Danielle Prouty, North Frederick Elementary School

Nick Rutten, New Market Middle School

Rebecca Sacash, Urbana Elementary School

Beth Sands, Frederick High School

Abigail Saunders, North Frederick Elementary School

Karima Sharper, Centerville Elementary School

Kelli Smith, Centerville Elementary School

Courtney Souders, Valley Elementary School

Lauren Stevenson, Middletown Primary School

Christina Tongyai, Frederick High School

Emily Vaughan, Brunswick Elementary School

Amber Wheeler, Waverley Elementary School

Elle Wilson, Walkersville Middle School

Mark Elias (Cohort 2), Heather Kehr (Cohort 4) and Charlotte Landahl (Cohort 4) will each receive Teacher As Leader Outstanding Educator awards from the Maryland State Advisory Council on Gifted and Talented Education. The FCPS Advanced Academics Office nominated the specialists for the work they do to ensure identification of students eligible for services and for their commitment to their own ongoing professional learning.

At Walkersville Middle, Elias is the “go-to person” when it comes to meeting the needs of highly able learners. He contributes an advanced academics lens to ongoing data analysis conversations at the school and coaches teachers and students to ensure progress. He has helped with planning and taught at the FCPS two-week Young Scholars program for middle and elementary students. He attends Highly Able Learner training sessions and regularly participates in professional learning opportunities and book studies regarding gifted education.

At West Frederick Middle, Kehr has implemented a robust program to identify students eligible for gifted and talented education. She has developed a curriculum incorporating gifted education practices and mind-brain education strategies. Making professional learning and meetings a priority, she is a resource at her school and as a presenter at professional conferences. She has served as a teacher at the Summer Institute for Gifted Learners and helped plan and deliver the two-week Young Scholars program.

At Whittier Elementary, Landahl is an advocate for meeting the needs of advanced learners. She also incorporates mind-brain education strategies in coaching high school field hockey. She presented at two recent professional conferences and participates in book study groups and other professional learning opportunities. A part of the Advanced Academics summer curriculum-writing team, she stays current on gifted and talented education issues and trends and is called upon to share her expertise in elementary schools across the county and at community outreach events. She is part of a small team that implemented universal screening for all second graders and is scheduled to provide professional learning about mind-brain education to preschool providers.

Kate Best

Thurmont Elementary School

@fcps_tesmath

When considering a shift to blended learning, it’s very easy to say it is something that will work to enrich more highly able learners or for our general population of students. Teachers and administration can seem hesitant to use blended learning as a means of reaching our lower level achievers, usually those enrolled in Special Education or those receiving an intensive intervention. As a math specialist for Thurmont Elementary, I was also hesitant at first to dive in with my most struggling learners, but I’m already finding that the risk was worth the reward.

Generally, intervention groups have always been guided, teacher-led rotations, usually in place of the student’s independent time in the classroom. The result has been an issue with student agency in these students, demonstrating that they don’t know how to independently complete tasks. When presented with this problem, we came up with a plan. Currently, I run a blended learning group with a small group of intervention/ special education students in both third and fourth grades. I provide the grade level modeling to these students and then they go through two rotations - an online and an offline rotation. The offline rotation is teacher-guided but uses the 5 teacher-led station suggestions provided by Catlin Tucker. This station is a mix of pre-requisite and grade level skills. The online station is a personalized playlist; it is scaffolded to begin with early pre-requisite skills the student has struggled with, and then it builds to the grade level standard. This has allowed us to fill in some of the gaps while also holding these students to the same level of independence and student agency as their grade level peers.

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Kate Mills

Catoctin High School

@CHSLibraryMills

The Vanguard Program includes 10 media specialists* from around the county: elementary, middle, and high school teacher librarians who play a unique role in the promotion of blended learning in Frederick County. School-based librarians are typically the instructors in each school who see all of the students every year. As Heather Hyatt (Yellow Springs ES) points out, “I am the only person in Yellow Springs who sees every kid, every year for six years.”

While there are many media specialists in the county who chose to apply to the Vanguard program, all of the school librarians in Frederick County, from pre-K classes to the dual-enrollment courses in our high schools, “have been learning blended learning throughout our careers. It tends to be how we approach our lessons. Blended helps us to manage the classes. Especially since, at secondary, we may not know every student as well as the classroom teachers do,” as Cindy Doggett (Walkersville HS) points out. So, with that introduction, I would like to share with the Vanguard community (and beyond!) what we are doing, day in and day out, to support blended learning, to encourage students to take ownership of their learning, to integrate technology into instruction, and to embrace a variety of student-centered teaching. As Jen Siderius (New Market ES) puts it, “I am really happy to be on this journey. It has transformed how I teach in the media center and my ability to interact with students. Being able to work more one on one with students has given me more chances to get to know them and see what they are capable of in their learning.” Kathy Domboski (Urbana MS) notes, ““Don’t forget to use your librarian. We love collaborating and helping to co-teach. We can be the extra teacher and the expert the student can have with any lesson.”

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Emily Koogle

West Frederick Middle School

@WFMSkoogle

What do you do when the honeymoon is over and you have a seventh period class that has a high population of very challenging students, both academically and behaviorally? What do you do when there are two of those classes in the same content area, at the same time, in the same grade level? Not sure? Keep reading! I have the answer!

In my experience, teachers tend to dread the end of the day and start to build up a narrative about how those kids can never learn because they are too disruptive and too needy. Luckily for students at West Frederick Middle School (WFMS), this isn’t the case. Their teachers and I looked at this not as a problem, but as an opportunity to be creative.

It began with Accelerated Learning Process (ALP). Jenny Ryan, Terance Auleta, and I sat down to try and troubleshoot two very high need 7th period classes when Jenny proposed flexibly grouping the students, but on a new level. Instead of one teacher doing station rotation in one classroom, she proposed flexibly grouping not only the kids, but the teachers, and the classrooms. If both teachers were teaching the same content and experiencing similar challenges, why limit themselves to the scope of their own knowledge? This new thinking was the beginning of a beautiful collaboration.

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Feb. 26, 8:00-4:00 - Applied Academics Vanguard Forum

Mar. 2, 8:00-4:00 - ELA and SS Vanguard Forum

Mar. 3, 4:30-6:30 - Cohort 4 Launch at Hood College

Mar. 11, 8:00-4:00 - Elementary Vanguard Forum

Mar. 25, 8:00-4:00 - Math and Sci. Vanguard Forum

Apr. 21, 5:00-6:30 - Speaker Series: Stephanee Stephens

Apr. 22, 8:00-3:00 - Cohort 2 with Stephanee Stephens

May 26, 4:30-6:30 - Cohort 1 Celebration

June 2, 4:30-6:30 - Cohorts 2 & 3 Vanguard Forum

June 24 and 25, 8:00-4:00 - Cohort 4 Summer Academy

The Vanguard Teacher Program is a three year, competency-based, teacher leadership program. Vanguards will teach, lead, and coach others to create a blended learning environment in the classroom, while building capacity within schools and across the district.

Email: eric.haines@fcps.org
Website: vanguard.fcps.org
Phone: 301-644-5182
Twitter: @EHaines24