TRANSCRIPT: 3 Tips for Bringing Hope Into the Alternative Classroom (feat. Danielle Bell from Romulus Virtual Learning Center)
6:44PM Jul 6, +0000
Speakers:
Nikki
Danielle
Keywords:
students
teacher
virtual
semester
education
learning
educator
hope
high school diploma
graduating
teaching
setting
social worker
pandemic
started
danielle
program
pushed
classes
alternative
I do believe that strongly is a great thing that alternative education does exist. And I hope, you know, in a future, you know, as education keep evolving for secondary, that they don't eliminate these type of programs, because it does give a lot of students who are hopeless, or who feel or even their parents, you know, sometimes the parents are frustrated too, because the traditional setting is not working out for their child. And this is like their last attempt effort to try to, you know, get their child path redirected. And so it brings a lot of hope, a lot of hope. And to see them come into the program start might not be doing it well in the beginning, and see your students actually at the end of the semester, even if it's like, go up one letter grade, you know, in the classes, that's a big accomplishment, a big accomplishment that gives them hope that okay, I can do next semester. Okay, I can do the next semester, and before you know it, they'll be graduating high school. So, I mean, that's a great thing. Hope, to me, resonates throughout alternative education.
I’m Nikki Herta, and this is BRIGHT: Stories of Hope & Innovation in Michigan Classrooms, a podcast where we celebrate our state’s educators and explore the future of learning.
BRIGHT is brought to you, in part, by Meemic Insurance Company, insuring the educational community for more than 70 years. Teachers and school employees, visit Meemic.com/Quote to see how much you can save.
In today’s episode of BRIGHT, I chat with Danielle Bell, a teacher at Romulus Virtual Learning Center.
Danielle sheds light on some common misconceptions about virtual learning, explores why hope is such a critical part of her job as a teacher in an alterative setting, and offers three tips on this topic for her fellow educators.
The time where I fell in love with education is actually when I was student teaching. This is back maybe over 10 years, 11 years ago. And my students they were struggling with Sociometry and chemistry balancing equations and finances so I googled something fun. It was a candy lab. And I had one student in particular who I remember who was really really struggling with, you know, the chemistry subject period with his sciences. He thanked me for doing the you know, for doing the project not so much for the candy, they were able to eat it afterwards. But just learning just basic concepts like something that was hard because I was just teaching it the regular way they teach you to teach Sociometry which is too complex to me for high school students. But with this one project, it used the candy, a certain candies represented certain elements like carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and then I had a word toothpicks, which represented different type of bond, single bond, double bonds, triple bonds. And so it was able to bring it more to a basic level where they were able to understand it and just watch the news really, really appreciative. And after that one particular lab that I did, which was a basically I went to a more complex lab, he actually started paying attention more in my classroom, he actually started coming to my classroom more because this particular student had a history with skipped and unfortunately, and you know, that's when I was like, wow, okay, okay, I like education, oh, okay, I'm gonna make the impact and some of the students lives. And so that's when it kind of really clicked for me that okay, I chose, you know, the right profession, the right major, etc.
That's really cool to hear. And it sounds like that student really appreciated the effort you put in to help them understand, you know, and make it more engaging for them. What informed your journey to education. So you started off it sounds like teaching face to face in your student teaching. And at some point, you made a pivot into virtual teaching. You want to tell us a little bit about that and kind of what led you down this path and what you like about virtual teaching?
Well, my background is small in terms of in-person teaching I in person taught during my student teaching, and then I taught briefly under a year fires in person face to face or person to person. Then I decided to pivot into virtual education. My prior experience with virtual through education, I taught like it as a community college professor, but it was only for one semester. And I really enjoyed it. I really liked it. We did the labs in person, of course, but all the lectures were mostly virtual, we had like new, every two weeks, we had a class of six hours. So that gave me a brief, you know, introduction to what, even though was in high school or secondary was college, it gave me my first introduction to virtual world. Blackboard, you know, how students are engaging, virtually, and I actually really liked it a lot. And so, I tried to break into it before had a difficult time, because of limited experience.
The good thing about the pandemic education, education, he had to kind of change in order to make sure that all the students across the US and actually across the world would keep learning so that learning wasn't disrupted for elementary, middle or high school students, virtual learning isn't for every student, I have to admit, even though with the pandemic, at one point, all students were totally virtual, because that was the only way that they can keep the learning going without disrupting it because of the COVID-19. But, um, I like it. And some of my students, I would say, a good question my students, they love it, too. You have to be disciplined, you know, with the virtual learning as a student, because your teacher, I mean, we have structure to our program, but it's different than in person learning where your teacher is in front of you. And so students can fall off, you know, sometime with the virtual aspect or fall behind easier. But I mean, I like it for the students who are more motivated. It's a great avenue, you know, that's independent thinkers, independent learners, they have no problems.
Some of the challenge students that I've had this semester that they started off with problems, because for them, it was different, they might not been, they thought, put it this way, what they thought virtual learning was going to be was different than what they thought it was going to be, you're not going to be at home playing video games, or Snapchat, you actually got to do school, and you got to spend hours, just like if you physically went to school, say from seven to three, you're doing the same thing. But you're in front of your laptop, you know, you're going to see your teachers, you have to be creative, as being an educator, so that way your students will actually learn especially my subject area, so they actually learned when I'm supposed to be teaching. Sometimes you got to redo things, because you might do a lesson and might not go too well, because they don't understand. But I really liked it. I love learning, I love new ways of teaching students virtually. And it's challenging. Probably a lot of people that do virtual teaching probably have the same, you know, you got to be adaptive, you got to always be growing, you always got to be learning. And with technology, period, technology changes. Constantly, nothing stays constant, you know, so what I know now virtually is a teacher say if this is still around another 10 years, it's gonna be totally different or even another year or two. So, yeah.
Oh wow. Thanks for sharing that perspective. I think so much of what you said resonates, you know, just hearing especially like, having interviewed a lot of teachers across the pandemic, and hearing about just how adaptive they truly had to be. Today, we are going to be talking about alternative students, you know, students who are in an alternative classroom. And I know, different students are drawn to this setting for different reasons. And I was wondering, to start off, if you might tell us a little bit about what's different situations a student might encounter that would lead them to an alternative education setting.
It can be several reasons, it could be that, you know, some students, unfortunately, are kind of antisocial, maybe you can't handle some classes depending on the district's you might have 30 to 40 students in a class and for some students learn that's too too many students and it's hard for them to learn with one teacher, you know, teaching. So they might need a smaller environment, which you know, virtual why I have 51 students, so versus me having 40 times well, 30 to 40 times five to six, you know, sections, I have way less students so you do get more one on one. So that's one reason where they might draw to virtual learning and also to alternative setting. Also, the students might be having behavioral problems in school, where they are not focusing, they might be, you know, acting out, in a sense. So that's another reason why they might end up in a tunnel, you know, education or learning. It could be bullied or not. I know I had one or two students. Unfortunately, they were getting bullied in school or intimidated. More or less by students and that interfere with them learning. So that's why they ended up, you know, in our program, alternative program.
We also have some students who are special education students. And some that aren't necessarily been labeled as special education, but they're having a difficult time with the traditional setting of learning. So that's another reason why they might end up you know, being turned to the student. And then some students also fires and credits, they fall behind in their high school credits. And so that's why I turned to education programs and CIS, so they won't drop out of high school. So that's another, you know, reason where why, you know, students end up in a setting, the challenges that they might face is just redirecting them coming from a traditional setting into an a turn, the setting can be challenging for a lot of it is challenging for a lot of the students fires and getting back on track with the learning. And myself as an educator, and also my colleagues that I work with, you know, we have to make sure that we're always seeking different teaching techniques, because every student learns differently. No student learns the same, you know, way. And so as an educator, and an even myself, you have to find ways to help them learn. So they'll understand the material, the biggest challenge, I think, I find is the students really the mindset, getting them back focus, you know, because most times when they leave a regular setting, they're not as focused, that's why they're in alternative. So you know, in our terms of setting is just redirecting them and getting them back on the right path of learning, and also getting them interested where they're going to be successful, and actually, you know, complete a semester or a class and multiple classes, then they can actually, you know, go on and graduate. So
It's kind of cool. I can see the parallel with that first story you shared with the stoichiometry lab, and candy activity, and just how that's a real skill set that you bring, you know, and just finding those students in the places that maybe they're starting to fall through the cracks. And like kind of supporting them there and re-engaging them. It's, I can see how that lends itself well to, you know, the virtual setting where you can see, it sounds like you know, right, like, okay, it's this physics lab that's holding the student up, let's see if we can help them understand it, and help them get through it and keep them engaged. So that's pretty cool to hear. Thanks for sharing. One thing, when we were originally talking, you know about this topic, and your passion for helping students in the alternative setting, a word that kept surfacing was "hope." And just you know, why that's so important in this particular setting. And I was just wondering if maybe, you know, given that it's the title of this episode, if you'd want to just tell us a little bit about why you think hope is so important in the alternative setting and bringing hope to the students?
I think hope is so important in alternative education because most of these students, this is their last chance, you know, by the way, I mean, I shouldn't probably say it this way, but it's the reality. This is this is the last step for the students before if this doesn't work, most of the time, students are going to drop out of high school that you know, nine times out of 10, if this doesn't, you know, succeed, or they might choose another program that might meet their needs better, you know, but if they don't, they might just totally just, you know, lose hope and drop out of school. And one thing I do love about like our program, or even just looking we had graduations recently for our alternative Ed, we had it for a GED. I just saw so much hope I saw students from ages 16,17, 18. And even like, I know GED is not our topic is part of our alternative ed program, but we had graduates in their 30s in their 40s even up to 60s that actually graduated, right? And so, you know, if a turn of education didn't exist, and we got so many different types of returns of education, you know, that exists besides the, you know, the school where I work at, think about how many people wouldn't even get a high school diploma. And so listening to the stories, it was three graduates who spoke at our graduation, just what challenges they had to just life challenges. On top of trying to get their high school diploma and GEDs, it was just amazing. It almost brought tears you know, to a lot of our eyes. You know, I won't get into details through the confidentiality of life. I will be you know, a little bit more specific, but I'm just glad that the program where I that exist, and that they are graduating high school students, the ones who are graduating on time, and the ones who do fall through the cracks and became adults, if they transition later in life. They're graduating people where, you know, they're getting their high school diplomas or GED, and they feel proud.
I know the one thing all of them said, they felt so proud of themselves of accomplishing that, you know, they felt like, you know, they can go to the next point. And I remember one or two students saying that their life has now really begun, you know, they can just, they don't dream no more, they can actually make their dreams realities, you know, they got their high school diploma. So you know, that's what I really love about the population that I work with. And also, my colleagues who do the adults who are getting high school diplomas and GBS is given them hope. And a lot of them, it's not easy for them to actually push through and obtain it is hard. Even like recently, I had a student yesterday, to the wire of the grade, I said, Look, you gotta finish this, because she was gonna give up and she kept trying not to finish these three classes, you're 87% done. That's a matter of one or two assignments Edgenuity and a final exam, why are you talking about I'm gonna take that off and take the class over? No. So I just kept bugging her. We text my program, we text, we do Google texts, because we don't have cell phones, you know, by the district. So we have Google texts, we email and one thing about the younger generation, they love texting, so I can text my students, they will text me right back right away, you know, that kind of contact. So that's what I really love about my program. You know, I just like to see students who feel like they couldn't accomplish something, actually accomplish it. And once they see that, too, I'm quite sure when the fall comes around, they're going to be more motivated.
And I had one of my students was a male student, he actually thanked me. And actually, his father did also because he was getting on ease. I came in November of last year to this district. And he did all right last report card that was in January. But it has been a drastic improvement. He got all B's, I think he got like four B's and two C's. That's a big drastic improvement. From when I started. He had mostly D's and E's, right. But I had to push him though. It wasn't like he was going to naturally do it. I literally had to text I had to call his father, his father in law every time I thought it was always a negative report. And I did call him yesterday. And he was like, what's going on? I said, No, this is a good report, he did really well. I wanted him to know, you know, how well his son had done. And so his son was proud of, you know, himself.
So hopefully, it'll carry on into the fall, if you decide to stay, you know, part virtual with us. And some of the students might go from virtual back to in person, we'll see you know how the numbers change in the fall. But that's what I really like about alternative ed, many students who think they can't accomplish anything, they shock themselves, they do much better. And then you have on the flip end, you got some students, unfortunately, that are not going to make it through, you know, you push them, you push them, and they just give up and then to on the flip end, they have other issues outside that they might not be telling us. That's barriers, you know, why they're not finishing, but the ones who do finish, and especially if they were doing horrible, academically when I started, and then they ended up with passing grades at CS or B's. That's a big accomplishment, you know, wow,
I was really moved by what she said about like, they don't dream anymore. They know how to accomplish and how to reach their dreams that really struck me. And that's kind of what I'm hearing throughout, you know, the stories that you've been sharing, is that, you know, you're kind of building that self efficacy, you know, if you have a student who doesn't think that they can do it, you know, yeah, you have to hold their hand maybe a little bit, and, you know, stay on them to keep them going. But once they figure out that they can do it, you know, they've done it, you have a whole group of students now, who you helped prove to themselves that they can, in fact, do it, even if they thought that they couldn't. And you have to believe that that experience could be so, so important to a student who didn't believe they could do something, you know, just for any of us, you know, when you accomplish something you think that you couldn't do, the way that that can influence the rest of the course of your life is so, so critical. Those are like the moments that really define us. So it's so cool to hear that you're, you know, bringing that into your classroom and helping these students. So thank you for the work that you do. I wonder, before we dig into our three tips, if you just want to speculate do you view that this bringing up hope and this kind of bolstering of hope as a fundamental part of what it means to be a teacher and an alternative classroom?
I do believe that strongly is a great thing that alternative education does exist. And I hope, you know, in a future, you know, education keep evolving for secondary, that they don't eliminate these type of programs, because it does give a lot of students who are hopeless, or who feel or even their parents, you know, sometimes the parents are frustrated too, because the traditional setting is not working out for their child. And this is like their last attempt effort to try to, you know, get their child path redirected. And so it brings a lot of hope, a lot of hope. And also the educators you know, you feel more hopeful, you know, as you every semester, say, fall winter, if you do summer school, you meet many students, many personalities, and to see, especially when you have, like, I have 51 students and say, you might have a couple, where they're not really doing well academically, when they come in your program, and they might not have the study skills, some of the students have their behind, you know, in certain areas, you know, based off of where they went to school. And to see them come into the program start might not be doing it well in the beginning. And they you're intervening, you know, doing some type of intervention, teaching techniques or things, also working with the customers because we work closely with our customers as well. And see our students actually at the end of the semester, even if it's like go up one letter grade, you know, in the classes, that's a big accomplishment, and big accomplishment, that gives them hope that okay, I can do next semester. Okay, I can do the next semester, then before you know it, they'll be graduating high school, so I mean, that's a great thing. Hope, to me, resonates throughout alternative education.
I’m Nikki Herta, and you’re listening to BRIGHT: Stories of Hope & Innovation in Michigan Classrooms. BRIGHT is brought to you, in part, by Meemic Insurance Company, insuring the educational community for more than 70 years. Teachers and school employees, visit Meemic.com/Quote to see how much you can save.
Today, I’m chatting with Danielle Bell, a teacher at Romulus Virtual Learning Center.
Up next, we dive into Danielle’s top three tips for bringing hope into the alternative classroom.
The three tips of bringing hope into the classroom. One of the first one is you have to be very patient. And that's as an educator period. But in China today, you have to be to be more patient, just like special education is another area where a lot of patients as well, but you have to really be patient, because you're not going to always see the results come instantly, you know how sometimes you go to help you just figure all this because you have some students, I have some students, my I can help minimally, they fall right in line. You know, however, you got some students like for instance, I'm gonna give you an example. Quick example. We our program ended up last Yesterday was our last thing for our semester or for the wintertime. So we had a deadline of May 25. For them, so what we decided to do is actually make it that wasn't really the true date that the program ends. But we didn't want to end it on the date that it ended, which is yesterday because we noticed from the first semester we have, especially our students, they struggle some time to finish online, and it save you give them the actual date and save you have a couple of people who are struggling, they're not going to finish, you know, and so I had about 24 My students finished may 25, which was like two and a half weeks ahead of program. So that's, you know, that was wonderful. But back to the patients part. I had some students I kept extending it a week by week, which was technically still early, right. And I extended it all the way to what the real deadline is, and you know, to say to the last minute where my grades were due for three of my students, you know, you have to have a lot of patience, you know, dealing with a turn to vet you can't just, you know, put a certain timeframe and say, okay, they gotta meet this task. You almost have to you have to have patience, you know, if you don't have patience, you will not be able to do The Education period, but a dot education or a time to vet which I work under, is even more challenging because those students have other issues compounded plus the learning to meet the task. So that's one thing I will tell the teachers in alterative ed at first and you don't bring in the hope in the classroom.
The second thing, you always have to be a mentor and expat, and inspire the students. Because there's so much and all I should say, in the last two years, I think all the students in the world have suffered so much been in the pandemic, you know, mentally, psychologically, just been through so much, you know, more than typical students prior to the pandemic, you have to put our population especially in alternative ed, you're a teacher, you're going to have to be a mentor, you have to continue to Inspire, Inspire, despite what else is going on. And so that's one thing, another reason where you do hope, like myself, I don't do quotes in the morning, but I have a colleague, she actually sent out motivational quotes to her students. What I do, I have had some students who've told me about, you know, personal challenges they've had, and I will reach out to them sometimes just to do a wellness check on them, as far as in just trying to inspire them to keep going, because that's what they need. Like, most times people just look at the academic part of education, only, you're looking at the whole child.
I used to work in health and human services for almost 19 years. So if somebody's having like, psychological barriers, parents died, or a family members ill or, you know, some people might be struggling, you know, to even put food on the table, their parents, you know, you want to bring whatever services like we might not can do it ourselves. But we do have a way of breaking into social workers, we have a Teen Clinic at our school, or if they need a counselor, or even if they might need something with public assistance, getting a bridge card or snack bars and bringing food into the household, you try to be a mentor, and you try to inspire hope. And that's another thing, what are done with our time today that you're going to find yourself doing. To me a little bit more, I find myself like you kind of like a mini social worker plus a teacher, because you're constantly doing that and can so they can keep going assumptions by you know, what I'm going through, this is hard, you know, you don't know. But if they tell you a little bit what they're going through, you'd be like, Oh, wow. So you have to constantly bring some type of inspiration to try to keep them motivated, even though they might be going through other personal situations. So they can actually finish not just do a little bit and then just stop, you know, for the rest of the semester. So that's another key thing. I will say just you have to be very inspiring and bring hope into teaching whatever your subject area is in terms of education.
So when you're dealing with a student, you know, who's like, you know, there may be saying something like that, like, Oh, you don't know what I'm going through. And they're struggling to find, you know, to feel understood, maybe, you know, despite the world even and struggling to find that inspiration themselves, what are some of your kind of like, go to ways that you might, you know, help bring that hope and inspiration to them, you know, to some of your kind of the common practices that you might do?
Oh, I like I said, I do wellness checks, you know, I will text them, I'll pick up the phone and call and ask them, you know, like, how are you doing? You know, how's your morning going? You know, how are you feeling? You know? So right now, for some reason, depression is really big among the teams in our program, and not just in my program, but I think that's everywhere around us. But when a person tell me, one of my kids tell me, Oh, I'm not feeling well, mentally, you know, I will do a wellness check. And also, I offer, you know, services that we have a social worker on staff at the school because I'm not a social worker. So that way, I'll give the information to the social worker so they can reach out to the students. Um, also, you know, let the student know, if you don't want to talk to me, because, you know, sometimes they don't want to tell you exactly what's going on. But they might say, I'm just not feeling well, mentally. I'm depressed, you know, I let them know about our team center, you know, and then also always tell them self care is really important, you know, because I know some of my students they work plus they go to school, and they do other things, you know, for their families. So I just try to always say something positive, because sometimes they might not be always Depression, depression, per se, but they might just feel overwhelmed by you know, whatever circumstance they ran and they don't see no way out of whatever they going through. Um, so I try to always say something positive, you know, like I said, sometimes it's a little deeper than that where you need to social worker to be involved, you know, or I might talk to their parent or whoever they live with their guardian, if it's something, you know, real severe, if you fill in, you know, based off of what they told me, that makes sure there's no such thing where they need, you know, more professional constantly, but I just do wellness checks, that's one of my biggest things, you know, I try to say something positive, and always just provides some words of wisdom of hope to just try to keep them going,
Would you like to lead us into your third tip?
My third tip for bringing hope to the students is trying to put structure in the students lives. As far as, as an academic, you know, professional as a teacher, I mean, you can't put structure in a personal life, because you don't live with them, of course, you're not their parents. But you know, being an attempt to set in is different than a regular setting. So some of the students figure I can just do whatever I wanted to, because I'm going to attend school, there's no order, you have to bring the structure in. So that way, once you bring the structure in, I think everything else falls in place, you know, for the students, you know, either they're gonna rise up to the test or not. So those are like my three tips that I would give to educators as far as bringing hope to our alterative ed students.
Real quick, before we wrap up any suggestions for how you bring that sort of structure? Any examples?
I decided to do virtual meetings, like four days a week. Because when I first started, we didn't have it, it was just straight Edgenuity. So when the second semester rolled around, it was the end of January, mid January, after Dr. Martin Luther King Day is when we started the second semester, we, both myself and my co teacher, we decided to do virtual meetings. And so I noticed my contact with my students became became better. Because you know, we have to weekly, have contact with them, track them with their progress. Even some of the students, the ones who are more challenging or having challenges, they might not log in, like they should, you know, they were made to log in from 7:00 to 2:10, I think is the school day. So they were required to do that, and also to do the virtual meetings, but it made the students more accountable, made them login more, and actually, the tivity was better, and actually completed assignments and complete the classes, you know, so just that type of structure, also telling them, make sure they have adequate time to study because I know virtual learning is different in, in person learning. You know, before, like I said, we didn't really have that type of structure, where we brought that in to the students, and then it made it more where they are more likely to succeed, not just oh, you're in a program, and you're just not going to finish you got to actually enroll, nd you actually got to get through like you got to get to point A, you know, semester after semester. So you go from being a freshman to a sophomore, you know, to a junior, so that type of structure,
Thanks. That's helpful to help visualize it and see now how you do that in your classroom. All right, last question. Can you tell me about a teacher who had an impact on your life?
Oh, my goodness, I got too many people to pick a one. Unfortunately, the one I'm gonna talk about she actually unfortunately died during a pandemic. I loved her to death. Her name was Mrs. Lockridge. My eighth grade teacher. My fifth grade, my eighth grade, and most of my high school teachers, I had wonderful teachers. She made a really, really big impact in my life. At the time, my mom was having challenges at home financially. And I was one of those kids, I love reading. I guess I'll call myself a nerd. I'll talk about my own self. But this one particular teachers, one thing I loved about her, she made us like, writing wasn't my favorite area. I was more of an average writer, a B writer, B-, C+. So she pushed you know, she's an English teacher. She pushed me. She pushed me. Oh my gosh, she pushed me where she made me write better where I write B+. Sometimes A- but she made what much weakness become a strength, you know, and she wasn't my favorite teacher at the time because I mean, we bumped heads a little bit. You know, I didn't get in trouble, but she used to annoy me sometimes because she you know, some teachers really push you hard because they want the best for you. And she was stern, you know. Some teachers are super, super nice, and you've got some teachers who care but they real stern. She was very stern when she was my teacher, and probably for all her students. But after I left eighth grade, and looked back on it, she was actually my favorite teacher. She really pushed me, and years later... I mean, I keep in contact with my fifth grade, my eighth grade and a couple of high schools teachers who all impacted me. But I'm glad she pushed me because how life is... when you're comfortable, you don't really do as well. But when you're uncomfortable, like I was telling some of my kids, that's where you actually rise up to the occasion better because it makes you become stronger. And that's what she did for me when it came to writing. And also, I was going through a very challenging point at home,like, my mom was going through some things personally that I'd rather not really get into. But she recognized the issues just like I recognize with my students, so you know, she would bring things in for me that I might need personally. Like I said, books and things like she bought them herself. Her husband was an educator, I think he was a principal if I'm not mistaken. So she had books and all kinds of things sonot just for myself, but for some of the other kids. I'm quite sure that there are other studens, we're all grown now, that they talk about Mrs. Lockridge. She really made a great impact in my life. She did. So whenever I got in uncomfortable situations when I went to college, even in the work world, I always thought about her and decided not to give up. Because I was one of those people that always wanted to give up and she'd be like, "No, you're gonna do it again. No, you don't do that again." And I used to get upset. I'm telling you that we used to bump heads. But she actually helped prepare me for the real world.
Without a doubt, it’s challenging work to bring patience, motivation, and hope to students who — for any number of reasons — didn’t thrive in the traditional classroom. But with leaders like Danielle forging our path forward, if there’s one thing we’re certain of: it’s that the future is BRIGHT.
Do you know someone who is an inspiring Michigan educator who should be featured on our show? Send us an email at bright@michiganvirtual.org to let us know who they are and why they should interview them.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of BRIGHT: Stories of Hope & Innovation in Michigan Classrooms. This podcast is produced by Herbie Gaylord, is hosted by me, Nikki Herta, and is shaped by many of our passionate and talented colleagues. Big thanks to Christa Green, Anne Perez, Terence Wilkerson, Ana Aramberry, Sarah Hill, and Brandon Bautista for their contributions to this episode.
BRIGHT is brought to you, in part, by Meemic Insurance Company, insuring the educational community for more than 70 years. Teachers and school employees, visit Meemic.com/Quote to see how much you can save.
The BRIGHT podcast is made possible by Michigan Virtual, a nonprofit organization that’s leading and collaborating to build learning environments for tomorrow. Education IS changing faster than ever. Discover new models and resources to move learning forward at your school at michiganvirtual.org.