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CONTACT: Matt
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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.”