Students and faculty gather at the Center for Innovation in Education at Thomas College in Waterville Tuesday for an interactive discussion with 2016 Maine Teacher of the Year finalists Tamara Ranger, Rebecca Tapley and Cherrie MacInnes.
Teacher of the Year finalists Tamara Ranger, right, and Rebecca Tapley, left, take part in a interactive discussion on teaching techniques at Thomas College in Waterville on Tuesday.
Rebecca Tapley, left, and Tamara Ranger, right, both finalists for 2016 Maine Teacher of the Year, take part in an interactive discussion on teaching at Thomas College in Waterville on Tuesday.
Tamara Ranger, a reading teacher from Skowhegan and 2016 Maine Teacher of the Year finalist, discusses the connection between technology and the ability to observe students while not in school during a teacher-in-residence discussion at Thomas College in Waterville on Tuesday. The example Ranger used is written on the dry erase board. On a snow day, when most students would likely steer clear of lessons, Ranger said this student used a school-provided laptop to write a short story about a character who died of "carty act a rest," which was intended to be cardiac arrest. Although the phrase was spelled incorrectly, Ranger said this was a case of student who wasn't able to write before and was now working on a snow day to improve.
Tamara Ranger, a reading teacher from Skowhegan and 2016 Maine Teacher of the Year finalist, discusses the connection between technology and the ability to observe students while not in school during a teacher-in-residence discussion at Thomas College in Waterville on Tuesday. The example Ranger used is written on the dry erase board. A student was trying to write an essay from home on a laptop computer on a snow day, Ranger explained, and what the student wrote was the clue Ranger needed to identify how the student needed help.
Tamara Ranger, a reading teacher from Skowhegan, holds up a stuffed neuron she uses to reward students for reading during an interactive discussion at Thomas College in Waterville on Tuesday.
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