Teacher uses group interaction to engage students
Third-grade teacher Lisa Uccello is adamant that every teacher
at Cerra Vista Elementary School is equally deserving of praises,
even though she has been singled out as one of 12 recipients of the
2006 San Benito County Teacher of the Year awards presented by the
County Office of Education last week.
Teacher uses group interaction to engage students
Third-grade teacher Lisa Uccello is adamant that every teacher at Cerra Vista Elementary School is equally deserving of praises, even though she has been singled out as one of 12 recipients of the 2006 San Benito County Teacher of the Year awards presented by the County Office of Education last week.
“Lisa is one of the most outstanding teachers I’ve worked with in my 30-plus years of education,” said Deborah Bennett-Hall, principal of Cerra Vista Elementary School. “She’s a leader. She’s always looking for new strategies and techniques for every student, not just the ones in her classes. She has brought several programs to this district.”
Uccello introduced a workshop on classroom management, which focused on how to get students more engaged. She also worked with another teacher to get the Bellworks program implemented.
Bellworks is a program used to get kids ready for standardized testing. The program was purchased for use in the third grade last year.
Uccello spent the past 10 years teaching kindergarten, first, second and most recently third grade. During that time, she has developed a rapport with students. She started out at Sunnyslope where she spent five years and has been with Cerra Vista since then.
She believes that in each student lies the ability to succeed, but it is her job to try and reach students and motivate them.
“Education is all about how we present the materials,” Uccello said. “These kids are used to a fast-paced world, so the challenge is getting the kids to pull out creativity. We can’t use a 20-year-old approach to reach the kids of today.”
Uccello uses an animated, interactive style to reach her students. If the class is studying the solar system, she’ll ask her students to tell her everything they know before they start the lesson.
Other things she does get the entire class engaged at the same time. For instance, when she is introducing a new math concept, instead of writing the concept on the dry-erase board at the front of the classroom, she has all of her students write out the concept on their dry-erase boards, so that everyone practices writing it out.
The challenge to doing this is that not every student has the same needs, so it is up to Uccello to work with each student at that person’s level of ability, because the students run the gamut in terms of ability.
“Everyone is learning the same thing, but I’m meeting various academic needs,” Uccello said. “Some students need more help, some need less. One of the methods I use is to group kids based on their abilities. There are independent workers and other students who need extra support.”
It is Uccello’s enthusiasm and her sense of humor that drives the kids to succeed and is the reason she is so well loved and highly requested by parents, according to Bennett-Hall.
“She’s just an outstanding teacher,” Bennett-Hall said. “Someone who was born to teach.”
The biggest reward for Uccello is that moment when a child gets what they’re being taught for the first time. When she was teaching first grade, it was seeing kids read by themselves for the first time.
“To see their faces light up when they get it,” Uccello said. “When they understand, it’s just great.”
Uccello was surprised to find out she was selected by Bennett-Hall as Teacher of the Year for Cerra Vista, because she said she is surrounded by so many great teachers.
“Everyone here is wonderful,” Uccello said. “They each bring something special to the table.”
