Teacher Appreciation Week Winner Spotlight
Caroline Cox
Associate Product Marketing Manager • National Geographic Learning | Cengage
To celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week 2024, National Geographic Learning | Cengage hosted a giveaway to help spotlight amazing educators across the country. Hundreds of nominations were received and proved that there are incredible things happening in classrooms all over the country. There was one common theme in all nominations and that was inspiration. Teachers, thank you for your continuous commitment to positively inspire your students, communities, and colleagues to learn, grow, and explore. The team at National Geographic Learning | Cengage celebrates you and extends our gratitude for all you do! Read the nominations for some of our Teacher Appreciation Week giveaway winners below.
Melanie Hoffman
Melanie comes up with creative and engaging lessons for her students every day of the week. She spends a lot of time outside of school researching ways to bring the innovative use of technology into the classroom. Her students love her!
Amanda DeFays
This teacher has worked tirelessly to create a classroom experience for her students that builds each one of them up, helps them reach their dreams, and pushes them to go beyond the boundaries they thought they could ever cross. She helps to ignite the passion for entrepreneurialism for her students by helping them run companies during their senior year. This year, her senior students earned $40,000 in profits and prizes. Each company is challenged to make a difference in their community through donating funds or volunteer hours.
Alex Driscoll
Alex Driscoll is a positive example to his welding students and fellow co-workers. Alex has taught in Catoosa County for a couple of years to high school students and continues to encourage students every day to do their best. He has hands on opportunities for teens to practice welding techniques, inspires them to perform complex tasks, and reminds them they can do hard things. It is a pleasure working with Alex and seeing his excitement for learning and project-based learning. His students love the class but more importantly they are building lifelong skills and are becoming responsible workers of the future. They find value in school now and value in themselves through Alex’s teaching and mentoring.
Michelle Phillips
Helps all students have access to computer science education & also teaches students to respect the environment but running the recycling program.
Kristine Takata
Mrs. Takata is always giving up her time to help her students excel, especially by offering to teach advanced, honors, and AP (biology) classes. She does this humbly and tirelessly each year with no expectations of any recognition or accolades. Her students are well prepared when they arrive to my (chemistry) classes the following year(s). We save a lot of time by not having to do a lot of remedial review and are able to cover a lot of curricular material, all thanks to Mrs. Takata’s dedication to the profession. Also, she (sometimes) feeds her students. Do you know how much high school kids can eat?!
Tina Ostrom
I nominate Tina Ostrom because this is her calling. She is the finest of educators. After working 20+ years in the elementary classroom and receiving her Master’s, she decided to further enhance her education and dive into the unfamiliar world of English Language Learners (ELLs). She is constantly trying to expand her knowledge to best service not only her young multilingual students, but also work with other teachers to best aid English Language Learners in their own classrooms. In recent years, Tina has worked with ELLs in almost every elementary building in our district. She is the epitome of flexibility and resourcefulness as she has to communicate with dozens of teachers and numerous administrators from multiple buildings regarding students from culturally diverse backgrounds. She builds relationships with the students and makes learning a new/academic language enjoyable for the little ones. I know this for a fact because when her students transition to middle school with me, they still ask about Mrs. Ostrom! Additionally, Tina works with multiple Newcomers from other countries and helps them feel welcomed to our district. This week alone she helped a classroom teacher expedite translated permission slips to help a Newcomer attend a field trip. Tina does a wonderful job communicating with the parents of Newcomers using translated documents/email/conferences. She always attempts to involve the families of ELLs by hosting a separate ELL night to explain the ELL program offered at our school. Not only is she great with families, she is great with communication. Her detailed emails explain everything someone may need to know about an upcoming event or student. When it’s simpler to discuss in person, Tina will offer a phone call, video Google Meet, or host an in-person meeting, always with a smile on her face. She goes out of her way to demonstrate how to accommodate assignments and assessments for students.
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