Two educators from Danbury were chosen to be part of a national “Dream Team” of 200 talented math and English educators.
Danbury High School physics teacher Jameson Parker and Rachael Saunders, math instructional coach for the Danbury schools, were two of the eight educators from Connecticut chosen from an international pool of 4,000 educators to participate in LearnZillion’s “TeachFest,” a professional development event focused on creating high-quality Common Core curricular resources.
The Dream Team participated in TeachFest in New Orleans earlier this month to gather best practices as input for their work with LearnZillion, a company that promotes learning and teaching through assessments, video and progress reporting that highlight Common Core standards.
Dream Team members now apply what they’ve learned to the district and work as part of a LearnZillion-facilitated digital professional learning community. Saunders is already using what’s she’s learned to impact her students. This was Saunders second year being chosen for the national Dream Team, and she is also a coach for the Connecticut team.
“The biggest take away I have from LearnZillion is that I really take their motto seriously,” Saunders said. “Their catch phrase is ‘Scale your impact.’ I taught at DHS for eight years and after Teachfest 2013, the Math Instructional Coach position opened up in the middle schools in our district, so I decided to apply. I thought, what better way to ‘scale my impact’ Each year teaching at DHS I was impacting roughly 125 students, but by coaching in the middle schools and working with all 21 math teachers, I am in turn impacting around 2,000 students.”
Parker, who participated in his first TeachFest, said he is eager to share what he’s learned during the event.
“TeachFest was a fantastic experience. In a few days’ time, this diverse group of educators from all around the country became a community of educators with a common goal; to unpack the Common Core State Standards and create quality lesson plans, free for anyone to use,” said Parker. “It is an honor for me to represent Danbury Public Schools and I look forward to showing what Danbury teachers can do.”