Voice: September 2017

PSEA’s Council on Instruction and Professional Development annually awards Innovative Teaching Grants. Congratulations to this year’s recipients:

Jeffrey J. Kuntz
Punxsutawney EA, Jefferson County

Doing Social Studies: The project will go beyond the textbook, worksheet, and lecture cycle to add rigorous, engaging, activity-based lessons to the curriculum. Students need a variety of methods to master content, including the use of skills integration, engagement, collaboration, and attention to learning differences through choice.

Christie Z. Orlosky
Armstrong EA, Indiana County

Beyond These Four Walls: This cross-curricular STEM program utilizes the engineering process and delves into original research projects. Students will brainstorm, design solutions, test, communicate with peers and engineers, and build from blueprints. They will also engage in scientific research that involves a systematic process focusing on being objective and gathering information for analysis.

Kathleen C. Riley
Western Wayne EA, Wayne County

Striking Chords in General Music: Combining new knowledge of guitar performance with prior music theory and performance skills, students will be able to compose an original song. Using chord structures with personal poems and music experiences, students will have opportunities to extend current and contemporary interests in music composition by examining elementary guitar methods and techniques.

Dean R. Smith
Big Spring EA, Cumberland County

The Opus Project: One of the most important ways to motivate student learning is to establish relevance. With this as the guiding principle, an English curriculum needs to be created for vocational/technical students based upon relevant texts from areas of students’ expertise interwoven with student-centered, hands-on projects that will lead to professional certifications.