Local educators are being recognized through the Trustee Innovation Awards.
Corina Parisien is the chair selection committee and recently announced the 2024 winners.
She went over what the recognition amplifies.
Winners for the 2023-2024 school year are as follows (location at the time of nomination):
INDIVIDUALS:
Shauna Burton, Teacher – Caldwell Street Elementary School
Shauna has spent the past months with her students collaborating on a massive Real World Learning project. Students are assembling themed boxes including manipulative objects, 3D printed words, and online QR codes that will be shared with blind and low vision students at another school. The goal of this project is to help these other students learn French – an admirable intention since it has been shown that blind and low vision students have statistically lower rates of second language learning than their full-vision peers. Shauna has not only woven the ideation and creation of these boxes into many aspects of her teaching, but has also collaborated with peers at Carleton Place High School to create 3D printed items and words. She has also partnered with two teachers from the blind and low-vision school who have helped teach the Grade 3s and 4s what every day living is like with visual impairments.
Shannon Campbell, Teacher – Athens District High School
Shannon led a truly innovative approach to teaching history. She has spearheaded a pilot project through the UCDSB in which we incorporated a RELC (Recognition of Experiential Learning for Credit) section allocation. During the project, Shannon successfully incorporated cross curricular teaching, primary source document analysis and student passion to engage in a history project centering around the WW1 Battle of Hill 70.
Scott Currie, Teacher – North Dundas District High School
Scott loves teaching technology and design and is interested in everything they are teaching. He has demonstrated how to use various platforms. (ex. Krita, Fusion, and Photoshop) Scott Currie has been very creative with the given assignments with his students using these platforms and using other technology in our school.
Kellyanne MacKenzie, Teacher – Thousand Islands Secondary School
Kelleyanne started an organization at TISS called the “TISS Treasure Chest”. This is a group of students who recognize that there are students in need at TISS. They have collected food and hygiene projects, and have ongoing projects such as a hot lunch program to make sure that students in our own school have what they need to succeed.
Dan Tremblay, Teacher – Vankleek Hill Collegiate Institute
Dan has done an incredible job promoting physical and mental health and wellness amongst staff and students at VCI, especially since the COVID-19 shut down and online learning situation. His focus has clearly become improving student participation in “fitness for life” as he has implemented and promoted new extra-curricular activities that appeal to those who don’t necessarily sign up for traditional sports teams.
GROUPS:
Mary-Kaye McGreevy, Intensive Support Teacher – All UCDSB Schools
Lori Taylor, Human Rights & Equity Lead – All UCDSB Schools
Both Mary-Kaye and Lori work together to bring I3DEA3S3 the Community of Practice and Advocacy Series about Identity, Intersectionality, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Advocacy, Ability, Self-Determination, Self-Efficacy and Strengths-Based. The series has been received extremely well.
Joel Exner, Teacher – North Dundas District High School
Colleen Leslie, Teacher – Seaway District High School
Erin Ritchie, Teacher – St. Lawrence Secondary School
This team provided & created a memorable performance opportunity for students when the Kinsmen Musical Festival was not moving forward this year. They called themselves the SDG Mass Band 2024. Demonstrating Creativity and Innovation, they made their own spin on this opportunity. What started out as a performance opportunity quickly transpired into getting local musicians and retired music professionals in to help the new generation of music lovers within our schools. As music teachers, we often have the opportunity to attend workshops to help transform our teaching experiences, and we wanted to foster growth with our students by hosting a festival type atmosphere along with personal growth experiences.
Isaac Chapman, Teacher; Dean Fournier, Principal; Monica Taylor, Teacher – Perth & District Collegiate Institute;
Dominique Bertrand, Principal; Abigail Fawcett, Teacher – Russell District High School;
Breanna Bedor, Teacher; Terry Gardiner, Principal – Smiths Falls District Collegiate Institute;
Ewen McIntosh, Principal; Randi Tolhurst, Teacher – Vankleek Hill Collegiate Institute;
This team of educators and schools ran a course called Reading and Writing Strategies (ELS 2O), to support students in grade 9 whose Grade 8 data showed that a boost in reading would be helpful. The goal was to support these students with fundamental reading skills so that they would be more successful in grade 9 de-streamed English. It was a shared belief that no student should leave high school unable to read.
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