TA In Review

Upper School Highlights

UPPer School Teachers Going ABOVE ANd BEYOND

Written by: Alan Barr

Faculty continuing education and professional development is an important component in fulfilling the mission of Tuscaloosa Academy. Our teachers actively seek out opportunities to expand and grow their teaching craft. We practice what we believe in that we are all lifelong learners and instill that in all our students here at TA.

Professional development is an umbrella term that covers all areas of teaching. Our faculty are always perfecting their craft whether in content knowledge, differentiated instruction, technology use in the classroom, working with adolescences, to the vast range of skills one needs to be an effective teacher, coach, mentor. Just like our students, we are always learning.

In their own words

Sarah Meyer von Bremen, Upper School Journalism and Middle School English teacher, earned her Ed. S in Educational Leadership from Liberty University over the summer. My doctoral journey included researching two major changes in middle school culture - the entrepreneurial mindset in maker space programs and the impact of social media on reading cultures. I have certainly learned and experienced a great deal in how to lead education through and into these shifts. Sarah Meyer von Bremen, Upper School Journalism

I attended the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) National Virtual Convention. As the original convention was to have been held in New Orleans, Louisiana, many of the seminars were based around the historical and cultural particularities of French Creole and the Cajun people. I hope to be able to use what I learned on the Ursuline Method (used by the nuns of the same name at the convent in New Orleans) to run practice dictations or dictées in my classes, much the same as modern French nationality students do when learning other languages.

I also learned about the new National Standards for French education set forth by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) which will help with assessment practices and preparation for future AP testing and having our students ready to enter college-level French learning. Learning to use podcasting as a tool in the French classroom was another topic that I hope to use this school year as a means to help improve students' listening comprehension and speaking skills, with a possibility of allowing students to publish their works. Finally, one of my favorite sessions was stepping into the AATF President's kitchen and learning how to make La Poutine, Croissants, and Pain au chocolat, and learning more about the cuisines of the Francophone cultures of Martinique and Quebec. I am looking to have my French Club commandeer the school's kitchen later in the year to try out some of the fun recipes I learned! Ryan Meyer von Bremen, Upper School French

I have participated in the A-PLUS in Mathematics program as a Master Teaching Fellow at the University of Alabama since summer of 2019. Additionally, I earned my Master of Arts in Secondary Education, Mathematics in July 2021.This program offered on-going professional development for Tuscaloosa area math teachers in mathematics instruction and pedagogy during the school year and intensive summer sessions. By completing this program, I gained valuable experience in teaching mathematics, collaborated with other math teachers from Tuscaloosa and the surrounding area, and upgraded my Alabama teaching certification to a Class-A certificate." Sarah Newton, Upper School Mathematics

I took the United Soccer Coaches course for the Sports Performance Diploma to bolster my masters degree in kinesiology specializing in human performance to provide a better training environment for both the boys and girls soccer program at TA. My hope is to continue to develop better training environments to keep us competing at a championship level.

The Sport Performance Diploma (SPD) is a 20 hour online and virtual course geared towards coaches of youth, high school, college, and professional players who want to gain and apply knowledge in the area of high performance. The objective of the Sport Performance Diploma is to provide coaches with current performance training methodologies with practical application strategies to incorporate into their respective programs. Jeremy Hampton, Upper School History and Head Soccer Coach

I continue to work on improving and widening the scope of my own and my students’ artistic vision. In the year 2020, I had some of my illustrations published in works by Quid Pro Quo, a publisher out of Louisiana. I continue to work alongside Quid Pro Quo for graphic design and illustration commissions. In the fall of 2020, I also took part in a month long drawing challenge

and incorporated this challenge into my art classes. Encouraging the students to draw daily outside of class, reinforces the tenet of my art classes that art work is both for self expression and self improvement. Examples of works from this month long drawing marathon are included in my artist website www.maryruthpruitt. com. Mary Ruth Pruitt, Upper School Art Teacher

Over the summer, I began a research partnership with the Summersell Center for the Study of the South. The maps I produced will be published in Dr. John Giggie's upcoming book, Bloody Tuesday: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa. I am continuing to work with the Summersell Center to research the history of racial violence in Tuscaloosa County. My work has uncovered forty-seven previously unrecorded lynchings in Tuscaloosa, bringing the total from eleven to fifty-eight.

This work will document the identities of dozens of previously unknown victims of racial violence and encourage other historians to reassess the way they research lynching going forward. Callie Outlaw, Upper School History

My professional activities completed over the summer focused on two areas. The first was related to academics and involved attending a summer institute at Auburn University to prepare for and effectively teach high school AP chemistry. Whereas the second area consisted of publishing research data in a peer-reviewed paper titled: “Fluid evolution during Cretaceous and Tertiary igneous-hydrothermal events in the Getchell trend, Nevada.” This was the fifth paper in a series published by the Journal ‘Ore Geology Reviews’ concerning the genesis of Carlin-type gold deposits. Analytical data were generated for gold deposits of the Getchell and Carlin trends in Nevada, and the Huijiabao trend in China. John Groff, Upper School Science

Mrs. Tammi Scheiring, Dr. Albert Lily Computer Science Educator of the Year

Tammi Scheiring is the 2021 recipient of the Dr. Albert Lilly CS Educator award! She has 35 years of teaching experience, 33 years teaching computer science classes including computer science applications, AP CSA, AP CS Principles, and cyber security. She is a recipient of the College Board AP CSP Female Diversity Award, a reader and table leader for the AP CSP exam, she established the TA chapter of the CS Honor Society, and started the annual school-wide technology showcase.

Her CyberKnights cyber security team placed in the top three teams in two different statewide CTF competitions, and the Girls Go Cyber team made it the championship round in 2020. Her most recent initiative, the Esports team has beaten college teams and placed third in the nation! We are fortunate to have educators like Mrs. Scheiring at Tuscaloosa Academy. Her devotion to her students is second to none. She looks out for the underdogs and strives to make every student feel important, accepted, and loved. Mrs. Scheiring goes above and beyond the call of duty as the school’s information technology coordinator on top of the classes she teaches. She is most deserving of the CS Educator of the Year Award.

Above is a piece of artwork from Ms. Pruitt’s collection.

Above: Mrs. Meyer von Bremen proudly holding her Education Specialist Degree. Below Left: Mrs. Newton and her Master of Arts in Secondary Education certificate. Below Right: Mrs. Scheiring holding her CS Educator of the Year Award.

Middle School Highlights

Middle School Teachers expanding thier horizons Written by: Brooke Peterson

Every year, Tuscaloosa Academy teachers engage in meaningful professional development, ever finding ways to perfect their craft. The normal fare of PD includes conferences, workshops, and classes. However, sometimes our faculty are afforded opportunities to engage in more academic research and studies.

In their own words

I was selected to go on an expedition to the Galapagos Islands as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow with the National Geographic Society and Lindblad Expeditions. Every year thousands of educators apply to this prestigious program for a once-in-alifetime opportunity to travel on an expedition ship to a remote location around the world. I was elated to be chosen. This summer we began our training for the expeditions by taking numerous classes taught by National Geographic photographers, explorers, naturalists, and other experts we will be working with in the field.

I have always been interested in traveling to new places and learning about different environments and cultures. In the classes I teach at TA, I talk a lot about how humans impact their environment and how those interactions affect the local wildlife and landscapes. The Galapagos Islands is a double World Heritage site as both the land and sea are protected by laws, so this will be a wonderful opportunity to see a natural habitat virtually untouched by humans.

Opportunities to travel to unique locations around the world help me as an educator by giving me a new perspective on a place and allowing me to bring those experiences and perspectives back to my students in the classroom. I will be working closely with a variety of National Geographic explorers, photographers, and naturalists during this expedition and will be creating lesson plans and projects based on this experience to be shared with other classrooms around the world. Jaclyn Foster, Middle School History

A group of 4 of us, Dr. Margi Rusmore (Occidental College), Dr. Robinson Cecil (California State University Northridge), Dr. Harold Stowell (UA), and I spent a week doing geological field work in and near Wrangell, Alaska. Wrangell is a town of about 1400 residents in southeast Alaska. It is on one of several islands between the ocean and the Coast Mountains, which separate Alaska from British Columbia, Canada. We worked from small boats along the coastline and along the banks of the Stikine River. We stayed both in town and in a small forest service cabin. This week-long trip was part of a large long term project on the Coast Mountains which are the roots of an ancient volcanic arc. The plan was to collect samples to determine the timing, pressure , and temperature of known magma intrusions and the associated metamorphism using existing geological maps as a guide. We had an excellent opportunity to sample previously unseen rocks exposed by recent glacial retreat. I helped with general logistics and data logging via GPS enabled Samsung tablets. I was last in this area in 1995, when we collected garnets to determine the timing of their growth. Some of these garnets are now part of TA’s teaching collection.

In addition to sharing science content, I feel it is also important to help students understand the nature of science and scientific research. It is therefore useful to periodically immerse myself in a research experience. The hours of discussion, in addition to getting to look at the rocks, helps remind me of how science actually works. In turn, I can share this increased understanding with my students. It also provided the opportunity to strengthen my field and rock identification skills. Of particular interest was the use of the tablets in data collection especially as we move to using iPads in school. It was a great opportunity to see how they can be used to organize and collect data in real time in the field. Kim Ouderkirk, Middle School Science

This research project is with the Departments of Mathematics and Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of North Alabama. The focus is on teaching mathematical reasoning through computer programming with the purpose of seeing if this is an effective tool in relation to generalizations made among 7th and 8th grade students in math classrooms.

According to UNA, “The goals of the CPR2 grant are to investigate whether computer programming is an effective tool for teaching and learning generalization in 7th and 8th grade math classrooms. The CPR2 Instructional Model (IM) will help students come to understand, interpret, and even generate general or algebraic expressions. The team has developed an explicit method for teaching generalization that is intended for learners with no background in programming or formal mathematical argumentation.”

My interest in this research first peaked with the concept of “generalizations”. Generalizations are important in math and stand above memorizing rules, especially when it comes to algebraic thinking. They help students go beyond formulas so they can see the logic behind the math and build towards higher level math. It’s hard to teach math, but there are ways to learn to teach math differently as we teach towards helping students make generalizations.

As an educator, I believe it is important for students to see the why behind something. If you can understand why it works, you have something to build upon. I’m constantly working to become more precise in questions that I ask in class with the goal of ensuring mathematical success for all of my students. I’m looking forward to heightened algebraic thinking and reasoning success among my students and being able to have more meaningful collaboration among colleagues. Rene McNeal, Middle School Math

Mrs. Jaclyn Foster, Alabama State History Teacher of the Year

We are fortunate to have educators at TA who excel in their subject area, and who are recognized by world-renown organizations and institutions. This year, Mrs. Jaclyn Foster has been named the 2021 Alabama History Teacher of the Year, an award presented annually by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to K-12 American history education. In addition to receiving this high distinction, she was also named the 2021 Grosvenor Teacher Fellow with the National Geographic Society and Lindblad Expeditions! A key principle of Mrs. Foster’s teaching is to meld the real studies and experiments of experts locally and globally in order to more fully engage her students in learning about history and science. Here from some of her students on the impact she has made on their studies.

I think Mrs Foster is one of the best if not the best teachers I’ve ever had! She inspired me to do so many wonderful things and help come up with outstanding ideas! One specific memory I have is whenever we would video chat with people from National Geographic who were traveling the world and we would get to ask them questions about their travel and experiences.

I appreciate that you make every single lesson fun and you care about all of yours students

I loved the NearPods in your class and all the projects we did. I also loved doing the Zooms with other classrooms and getting to connect across the country and world! She always takes the time to help everyone learn the subject

Some specific memories I have from your class are getting in touch with well-known scientists and being able to ask them questions. A special memory I have from your class is getting to learn about American history and the workings of our government because even though I already know so much I still learned a lot of specifics and I really enjoyed it! I will also never forget that the first time that I ever heard about COVID was in your class when you would have us watch those CNN Classroom videos every afternoon!

TA IN REVIEW Lower School Highlights and Preschool

Lower School Teachers are Lifelong Learners

Written by: Mary Madge Crawford

Teaching today looks nothing like it did twenty, or even just ten, years ago. Like technology, the field of education evolves so fast that techniques, skills and technologies become obsolete within a decade. That is why being a lifelong learner plays an important role in the educational process. It helps educators incorporate new tools and strategies into the learning process to boost their students’ learning and development. Gerhard Fischer, director of the Center for Lifelong Learning and Design (L3D) at the University of Colorado, Boulder says “Lifelong learning is an essential challenge for inventing the future of our societies; it is a necessity rather than a luxury to be considered … It is a mindset and a habit for people to acquire.”

Tuscaloosa Academy ages, which is why continuing the education of all of our faculty is very important to the school. TA offers opportunities for teachers to attend workshops, conferences, and take special classes, to help them stay up to date on the latest trends in their field of study. Mrs. Rosalind Holloman, who taught at TA in the 1980’s, and was one of the first computer teachers at the school, sponsors a yearly stipend for continuing faculty education through the James and Rosalind Cain Fellowship. Rosalind and her late husband James Cain knew the importance of teachers getting continuing education in their field. In addition, the TA Board of Trustees showed their support of the teachers by purchasing a NewLine Panel for every Lower School homeroom teacher. These giant, state of the art, interactive panels replaced their outdated SmartBoards. The panels are computers in themselves and are going to allow teachers and students to broaden their horizons like never before! The teachers have had some professional development training on them and will continue to train throughout the year. Many lower school teachers used the summer of 2021 to continue their education in a variety of ways.

In their own words

In June of 2021 my husband, Jack and I flew to Cody, Wyoming. We rented a vehicle and took day trips from Cody to many sites in the area. One of my favorite places that we visited was the Native American Museum in Cody. Since we study the Earliest Americans and geography in third grade History class, it was extremely interesting to me. The Native Americans in the region of Wyoming hunted Bison and used the animal to survive. The museum had original relics from previous centuries displayed. They displayed an original teepee that had been preserved from the 19th century. We were also able to travel into Yellowstone National Park and see herds of bison. Seeing the terrain, animals, and relics as well as art depicting Native Americans and the state of Wyoming really helped to enhance my perspective of history. Experiences like the one we had encourage me to bring more descriptive lessons back to the classroom. Louise Gambrell, Third Grade Teacher

I am so excited to be the Montessori teacher at TA this year! To prepare for my transition, I took an online Montessori Fundamentals class this summer. I met, via Zoom, with a group of teachers from all over the country and Canada. We spent nine weeks reading, exploring, and learning all of the ins and outs of the Montessori method and materials. It was a fantastic opportunity to not only learn more about Montessori techniques but also connect with other teachers. We were able to share stories and learn from one another. As a teacher I never stop learning! Kelly Barr, Montessori Teacher

This summer we went to the Alabama Educational Technology Conference in Mobile. We attended sessions about using technology in our classrooms. We learned about choice boards, flip grids, and how to use origami in the classroom. The Minecraft app is a super way to engage kids using problem solving techniques. We took google earth scavenger hunts and learned how to be “citizen scientists”. We are excited to share what we learned with our students! Suzy Gatewood and Christie Ozment, First Grade Teachers

This summer I took a professional development course called Responsive Classroom. This was a weeklong course that specialized in building relationships with your students in order to have a strong cooperative classroom. The three main things we worked on daily were morning meeting, quiet time, and teacher language. The Responsive Classroom is all about making the students feel welcome, loved, seen, and heard daily. I learned so much in one week and am excited about having my class become a Responsive Classroom. Windy Nelson, Kindergarten teacher and recipient of the James and Rosalind Cain Fellowship 2021