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Natalie Schultz is the Content Specialist for Social Studies Grades 7-8. Natalie currently teaches 8th grade at West Side Middle School. Natalie enjoys teaching Social Studies by engaging in read alouds, Doodle Notes, and theme collages. She loves to teach about the United States Constitution. She describes her classroom as “controlled chaos.” Students work in groups collaborating on research, creating and/or exploring the past. One of her favorite lessons is The History Museum Project. Natalie has been married for 34 years and has three children. Two of her children also teach in Elkhart Community Schools! Her family loves to camp and boat together! In her spare time, Natalie enjoys exploring historical areas in and out of Indiana.
Mark Schroeder is currently the Scient Content Specialist for Middle School. He enjoys teaching genetics and is very consistent in his teaching, routines and procedures. In Mark’s classroom, students work on building background knowledge and application in the lab. Mark would like to help all content teachers wrap their heads around the newly adopted curriculum. His favorite lesson to teach is giving students hands-on experience with extracting DNA from strawberries. Mark is married and has two grown boys. He loves to golf, ski and woodwork!
Mandy Davis is the Content Specialist for Middle School Language Arts. She currently teaches Grade 7 at Pierre Moran Middle School. Mandy is a big fan of mastery learning and giving students multiple opportunities to demonstrate their skills in different ways. She loves teaching writing. Mandy’s classroom can be described as a place where students are engaged in learning. Students frequently talk to each other about things they have read. Mandy walks around the room listening to conversations and helps to guide students in their thinking. She is looking forward to working with other teachers on a scope and sequence for language arts. Mandy and her wife have two children. Jacob is a sophomore Film Scoring Major at Berklee College of Music and Rachel is a freshman Integrated New Media Major at IUSB. The family has two dachshunds named Spud and Scout.
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Rick Ankney is the Middle School Math Content Specialist for Grades 7-8. Rick currently teaches 8th grade Math at Pierre Moran Middle School. Rick enjoys using Pear Deck and Visual Representations in the classroom. One of Rick’s favorite lessons includes taking the students out to the ball diamond with a long track tape measure and actually calculating the diagonal length of some plays! Rick also enjoys planting perennial flowers and shrubs and doing landscaping around his house!
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Jessica Ramirez is currently the Content Specialist for Middle School Special Education. She teaches 7th and 8th grade Special Education and Math at North Side Middle School. Jessica finds that direct instruction and modeling works best when teaching any topic but especially with math. Each new topic includes guided practice with step by step examples and whole group practice. Once the initial lesson has started, she then starts a problem, asking for help and guiding as needed. The further she works into the lesson, the more she asks for help with less guidance given. Jessica uses this method to teach her favorite math topic, Pythagorean Theorem. If someone were to walk into her classroom they would find her either at the front of the class or in the middle of a group of students, guiding and working with them, ensuring that they are learning the topic at hand. Jessica wants to be as engaging and involved with fellow teachers as she is with her students. Outside of the classroom she likes painting, collecting sea glass, and getting herself “lost” in the woods.
Liz Regules is currently the Content Specialist for ENL Grades 7-12. She teaches 10th-12th grade students at Elkhart High School. Liz’s two favorite instructional strategies are SIOP strategies, building background knowledge before a lesson and providing comprehensible input at all times. Liz enjoys teaching all areas of English, including narrative writing and poetry. Liz describes her classroom as full of activity. “If a person walked into my classroom, they would see activity: students working in pairs or in small groups practicing speaking skills, working on vocabulary, or getting individual feedback on their writing from me.” This year, Liz hopes to work with content area teachers on WIDA concepts, and with ENL teachers on building common formative assessments for ENL courses.
One of Liz’s favorite lessons comes from the book "Kids Like Me: Voices of the Immigrant Experience.” Students read the book and then write about their own experiences which eventually go into a class mini-book. Liz enjoys kayaking on the St. Joseph River.
Colleen Shook serves as the Content Specialist for Media, Grades 7-12. She currently teaches Grade 10-12 at Elkhart High School. One instructional strategy that Colleen loves to use is modeling. She tries to employ a think aloud technique to help students understand what is going on inside the brain which helps to break the learning process down into more manageable chunks. Her favorite concept to teach involves teaching effective research strategies. Colleen describes her library as “a welcoming space that is set up to accommodate several classes of students along with rooms for individuals too.” The library has comfortable and functional furniture to allow students the space to explore. Colleen also enjoys teaching Graphic Novels and how to use graphic novel features. She loves spending time with her family which includes her husband and three sons. She loves to travel and wants to eventually travel to all 50 states.
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Stefanie Foster is currently the Content Specialist for Social Studies grades 9-12. Stefanie teaches 11th grade at Elkhart High School. Stefanie favors classroom debate strategies to engage students in their present topic. She connects History with present topics to engage students and get them working together to analyze a variety of materials.Outside of the classroom, Stefanie enjoys reading and cooking.
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Eric Janzen is currently the Content Specialist for Science Grades 9-12. He currently teaches at Elkhart High School in the School of Natural Resources. Eric states, “In science, it’s easy to use lab experiences to get the students out of the “absorbing” and into the “doing” role. Eric does labs whenever possible! One of Eric’s favorite concepts to teach is how we use energy. He states, “It is a full circle topic because we can study how we get energy, how we use it, problems its use causes and solutions to those problems.” Eric’s classroom is full of activity; students work individually or in small groups to solve problems and find information. Eric is the “guide on the side” answering questions and providing nudges along the way. He would like to help teachers make their classrooms more interactive, engaging and inquiry based. His favorite lesson is the Owl Pellet Dissection. Owls do not digest all of their food, so the bones and fur are brought back up. In this lesson, students can find out what the owls ate and infer what the food web must have looked like. Eric and his wife have a blended family with five children ranging in age from 13-22 and a golden retriever named Molly. In his free time, he likes to get outdoors and see as many county, state and national parks as possible.
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Brittany Townsley is currently the Content Specialist for English Language Arts for grades 9-12. Brittany teaches grades 10 and 12 English Language Arts at Elkhart High School. Brittany uses a combination of co-teaching and cooperative groups in her classroom. She has two reasons for these combined methods: 1) audience adaptations for Advanced Speech and 2) the writing process for English. She feels that the combined methods allow students to work and learn from each other rather than a teacher telling them what they need to know and creates better material retention. Brittany uses Crime Scene Investigation techniques while teaching Julius Caesar, allowing students to investigate, make claims, then follow the claims with evidence as to who killed Caesar. Brittany enjoys learning about best practices and hopes to share and brainstorm with others to find ways to teach content while engaging students' minds. When not in the classroom, Brittany has 2 very active boys, a cat, and a pug. Her favorite activities are going to the beach, visiting National Parks, and attending the occasional MLB game.
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Alex Holtz serves as the Content Specialist for 9-12 Mathematics. Alex currently teaches grades 10-12 at Elkhart High School. Alex enjoys using the jigsaw method where students learn to do challenging problems in groups and then teach others. He enjoys teaching the unit circle and states that “Go Trig Fish” is the best game! Alex wants to share with teachers that high school math requires students to think most about concepts numerically, graphically, symbolically, and verbally. His wife, Andrea is also a teacher and his son, Zeb, is a Data Scientist. The family enjoys food tourism! Alex likes to play chess and other card and board games.
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Lori Holt is currently the Content Specialist for Special Education grades 9-12. Lori teaches at both the Freshman Division and 10-12 Campus and enjoys teaching genetics. She likes to use the “peer teaching peer” concept, ensuring students are learning the material by having each group learn a chunk of information then teaching it to the remainder of the class. Lori has frequent check-ins with students to see how they are doing. One of these methods is thumbs up, thumbs down ensuring the students are comfortable with the present material before moving on to the next. Lori has 4 children, 2 dogs, and a cat and enjoys home remodeling as well as reading.
Jennifer Higley is the Content Specialist for Family and Consumer Science 9-12. She currently teaches 9th grade at the Freshman Division of Elkhart High School. Jennifer loves hands-on learning and enjoys showing her students how to cook. Students work together to create food products in her class. Jennifer states, “I am pretty hands off and just monitor what students are doing. On direct instruction days you will see me using Nearpod to teach background information.” One of her favorite lessons is the Freshman Division Cookoff. Students work in groups and plan a menu with a budget given to them. They have to create a grocery list, a lab plan, and create teh menu. The project culminates with a presentation to the Freshman Division staff. Jennifer has been married for 15 years to her husband, Jeff. They have two children that keep them very busy! Jennifer loves to travel and make memories as a family when she is not busy baking!
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Bruce Baer is the Content Specialist for Business in grades 9-12. He currently serves as one of our internship coordinators at Elkhart High School. Bruce describes our classrooms as a place where students are involved in business simulations using the Knowledge Matters virtual experiential learning platform. Bruce hopes to share his knowledge of this particular platform with others in the district. One of his favorite lessons involves teaching the business operations of how to run a professional sports franchise! Bruce is currently in his 23rd year of education with Elkhart Community Schools. His wife Stephanie is a Kindergarten teacher. His son Braden, recently graduated from Purdue University and is working for 1st Source Bank as a Data Engineer and his youngest son is currently a sophomore at Anderson University and is pursuing a degree in business management. Bruce also serves as the varsity assistant coach in both the basketball and baseball programs at Elkhart High School.
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Nick Seidl is the Content Specialist for Engineering/Technology Grades 9-12. He currently teaches at the ETI. Nick enjoys having students work through design thinking and the engineering design process. He states, “This allows them to think critically about all aspects of a problem and systematically solve it.” Nick’s favorite lesson to teach involves a project that simulates the sorting of recyclable materials. Nick’s classroom can be described as a “blending learning environment,” where students have a host of resources to unlock content nda seek help for themselves. Nick is able to then float around the classroom, provide additional help and scaffold as needed. One of his favorite lessons is to teach about Ohm’s Law and its application to different types of circuits. Nick has three children with one on the way (due in January 2022). His wife is a teacher at Concord. Aside from teaching, Nick coaches the Robotics Team and has been involved with competitive robotics for 23 years!
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Jodi Saville is the Content Specialist for World Languages, grades 9-12. She currently teaches 10th-12th grade at Elkhart High School within the School of Business and International Relations. When asked about what instructional strategy Jodi most enjoys using, she states, “As a French Teacher, I start every key concept by modeling it through a visual representation of the language and allowing the students an opportunity to mimic me. After we practice through mimicking, I then encourage them to practice with each other and to keep a log of what each partner said.” Jodi loves teaching upper level students how to read authentic materials such as news articles. Jodi loves to teach moving around the classroom and encouraging students as they practice the native language they are learning through interpersonal interactions or through structural practice. Jodi plans to plan an integral role this year in the textbook adoption process by requesting materials on teachers’ behalf. One of Jodi’s favorite lessons is teaching about the perfume industry in France. Jodi states, “We learn about the climate in the south of France, the different types of perfume (cologne, eau de toilette, and perfume), the profession of 'le nez' and we finish it off by watching an Edpuzzle video where they show the harvest and processing of tea roses in France.” Jodi is married and has two sons. Her son, Dominic, graduated from Elkhart High School and is currently studying engineering at Rose Hulman Institute of Technology. Her youngest son, Christopher, is a student at the Elkhart Freshman Division and plans to study veterinary medicine. When Jodi is not teaching French, you can find her at the gym!
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