MONROE - The news came a year late, but Monroe Middle School science teachers didn't let the delay dampen their enthusiasm for finding out they had been finalists for an award last year.
Schoology, a learning management system the Monroe school district adopted three years ago, allows teachers to more easily share information with each other and communicate more directly with students and parents, according to MMS science teacher Heather Peterson. Schoology holds an annual conference for educators and administrators where it announces the winners of the "Schoology Educator of the Year" award.
"To me, it's a pretty big deal" to be finalists, Peterson said, noting that Schoology is being used across the United States and in more than 100 other countries. "It's not just school districts or public school districts, it's private, it's universities, it's higher ed. ... It's quite an acclaim, and I just wish we'd have known about it."
Fellow teacher Wendy Dyrhaug nominated the science department at MMS for the 2015 award because of its collaborative use of the program, Dyrhaug said in an email.
Schoology has so far only bestowed Educator of the Year on individuals since starting the award in 2014, making the Monroe application "fairly unique," according to Jen Marie Robustelli, the company's director of community.
The conference came and went, and the Monroe teachers didn't know they came so close to winning - until Schoology wrote a blog post about them this summer. Robustelli said in an email that the company received "so many amazing stories" among the more than 100 applicants in 2015 that they decided to feature each finalist in a blog series.
The blog highlights the MMS science department's use of Schoology to keep students engaged. Teachers use the platform to post daily updates, polls or interesting links for students to view on their iPads. They also build tests collaboratively on Schoology.
"We love that we got to feature an entire department in the series," Robustelli said. "This is exactly what Schoology is about - creating connections between people and resources."
Peterson started using the program five years ago, before it was adopted across the district. She said one of Schoology's tools gives students immediate feedback on how they're doing and allows her to evaluate the effectiveness of her teaching.
"It's such a useful resource for us on so many levels," she said. "When I look at the results of a test or an activity, I can see right away where a gap is and change my pedagogy - or maybe my methodology - to meet what the kids need, rather than having the kids meet what I need."
Of the original team Dyrhaug nominated, she and Peterson are the only two still teaching at MMS. Nadine Whiteman retired last year and Matt Eastlick resigned in May. Two new teachers have since joined the team, which will continue to explore uses for Schoology, Dyrhaug said.
"We're evolving, but yet we're just so lucky that everyone gets along really well, everyone works well together," Peterson said. "I think it's such a cool thing that we got going on."
Robustelli said 60,000 K-12 schools and universities use Schoology, which was founded in 2009.
Read Schoology's blog post about the MMS science department at www.schoology.com/blog/art-teamwork-build-great-blended-learning-experiences.
Schoology, a learning management system the Monroe school district adopted three years ago, allows teachers to more easily share information with each other and communicate more directly with students and parents, according to MMS science teacher Heather Peterson. Schoology holds an annual conference for educators and administrators where it announces the winners of the "Schoology Educator of the Year" award.
"To me, it's a pretty big deal" to be finalists, Peterson said, noting that Schoology is being used across the United States and in more than 100 other countries. "It's not just school districts or public school districts, it's private, it's universities, it's higher ed. ... It's quite an acclaim, and I just wish we'd have known about it."
Fellow teacher Wendy Dyrhaug nominated the science department at MMS for the 2015 award because of its collaborative use of the program, Dyrhaug said in an email.
Schoology has so far only bestowed Educator of the Year on individuals since starting the award in 2014, making the Monroe application "fairly unique," according to Jen Marie Robustelli, the company's director of community.
The conference came and went, and the Monroe teachers didn't know they came so close to winning - until Schoology wrote a blog post about them this summer. Robustelli said in an email that the company received "so many amazing stories" among the more than 100 applicants in 2015 that they decided to feature each finalist in a blog series.
The blog highlights the MMS science department's use of Schoology to keep students engaged. Teachers use the platform to post daily updates, polls or interesting links for students to view on their iPads. They also build tests collaboratively on Schoology.
"We love that we got to feature an entire department in the series," Robustelli said. "This is exactly what Schoology is about - creating connections between people and resources."
Peterson started using the program five years ago, before it was adopted across the district. She said one of Schoology's tools gives students immediate feedback on how they're doing and allows her to evaluate the effectiveness of her teaching.
"It's such a useful resource for us on so many levels," she said. "When I look at the results of a test or an activity, I can see right away where a gap is and change my pedagogy - or maybe my methodology - to meet what the kids need, rather than having the kids meet what I need."
Of the original team Dyrhaug nominated, she and Peterson are the only two still teaching at MMS. Nadine Whiteman retired last year and Matt Eastlick resigned in May. Two new teachers have since joined the team, which will continue to explore uses for Schoology, Dyrhaug said.
"We're evolving, but yet we're just so lucky that everyone gets along really well, everyone works well together," Peterson said. "I think it's such a cool thing that we got going on."
Robustelli said 60,000 K-12 schools and universities use Schoology, which was founded in 2009.
Read Schoology's blog post about the MMS science department at www.schoology.com/blog/art-teamwork-build-great-blended-learning-experiences.