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Georgia educator named National Blended and Online Learning Teacher of the Year

MEDIA CONTACT: Matt Cardoza, GaDOE Communications Office, (404) 651-7358, mcardoza@gadoe.org

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Carrie Madden, a full-time instructor for Georgia Virtual School (GaVS) is the National Blended and Online Learning Teacher of the Year, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) announced today. Madden is also the current GaVS Teacher of the Year.

The Blended and Online Learning Teacher of the Year Award is given to one K-12 educator each year whose efforts as a blended and/or online teacher exemplify to the highest degree their commitment to student success, knowledge and skill as a professional educator, and dedication to the field of blended and online teaching
. 

Madden (photo attached) is a full-time science instructor, a teacher mentor, and the current teacher of the year for Georgia Virtual School, a GaDOE program that provides online learning opportunities for public, private and home-schooled students.

“As an instructor for Georgia Virtual School, I have been provided with a wealth of professional development and instructional support that helps me to deliver an outstanding personalized education to students,” Madden said. “Combining this with my previous classroom experience has made for a particularly self-reflective transformation of my approach with students in an online setting. Creating an engaging and inviting classroom, where authentic communication about student progress toward learning goals drives instruction, is key. The ability of the online environment to open the doors of possibility for all students to succeed is inspiring.”

Madden (M.S., M.A.T.) brings nearly a dozen years as a secondary and post-secondary science educator to the virtual classroom, and is passionate about finding personalized and creative ways to connect with students using interactive technology. She is a science instructor at GaVS, works with teacher quality on a teacher-training MOOC, and has worked with the GaVS mentoring program to assist new teachers in acclimating to online teaching and meeting their professional goals. She is a frequent contributor to in-house professional development for faculty, and received GaVS’ 2013 New Teacher of the Year and 2014 Teacher of the Year awards.

“Carrie is a dedicated and enthusiastic educator,” said Jay Heap, director of Georgia Virtual Learning, an office of the Georgia Department of Education. “The online environment has allowed her to communicate and personalize instruction for all of her students while continuing to provide a challenging curriculum. Georgia Virtual School is proud of her accomplishments in the area of online instruction and the support she has provided to other teachers in the GaVS program as a mentor.” 

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