Posts Tagged teachers and teaching
The 2016 Teacher Innovator Award Winners: Far Back: Scott Weiler. From Left to right: Fabian Reid, Catherine Turso, George Hademenos, Jill Badalamenti, Cindy Lewis, Leon Tynes, Tracie Adams, Maureen Foelkl. (Unable to attend: Jessica Klass)
Next year, 2017, will mark the third year for the Teacher Innovator Awards, a program sponsored by The Henry Ford and Litton Entertainment, the producers of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation. This contest recognizes teachers who are innovative in the classroom, who inspire their students to think creatively, who are resourceful, and who make a positive impact on those around them from their students to their community. Ten grand-prize winners will be given an all-expenses paid trip to The Henry Ford for a five-day “Innovation Immersion Experience.” So what does that entail exactly?
The 2015 Teacher Innovator Award winners. From Left to Right: Joe Morris, Donna Gradel, Linda Reimond, Lyle Crossley, Melissa Collins, Jamie Ewing, Saba Ghole, Mark Suter, Wrayna Fairchild, Laura Bradley. (Unable to attend: Bobby Moore.)
Well, for five days the winners will explore the grounds of The Henry Ford. They will be treated to curator-led tours of The Henry Ford where they will learn about innovation through the lens of manufacturing as they can build a Model T, exploration as they learn about the early days of airplanes, automobile, and trains, and social change where they can hear the story of Rosa Parks while sitting on the very bus where she helped start the Civil Rights movement. These and countless other artifacts from mammoth steam engines from the early Industrial Revolution to Henry Ford’s personal violin collection await our guests every day.
The 2016 winners building a Model-T within Henry Ford Museum.
They will traverse Greenfield Village where one can truly see how those in the past lived as the homes of innovative luminaries, such as the Wright Brothers, are open to the public. They can visit a working farm, watch as glass is blown in our own glass shop, ride a Model T or take a train ride around the village. They can experience firsthand the spirit of innovation which was needed for society to progress.
“…The Henry Ford helps teachers inspire their students to be the same kind of innovative, risk-taking, hands-on, problem-solving people that made America so great.” - Laura Bradley, 2015 Teacher Innovator Award winner.
The 2016 winners exploring the Wright Cycle Shop in Greenfield Village.
The winners will also get to experience the height of modern innovation as they tour The Ford Rouge Factory, witnessing the modern assembly line at work as Ford F-150s are built right in front of them. By studying the history of this factory our educators will see examples of innovation in manufacturing, industry, and society itself.
“A week at The Henry Ford opened my eyes to not only Ford’s legacy, but also to the power of teaching our students to be innovators themselves.” - Laura Bradley, 2015 Teacher Innovator Award winner.
Our winners will explore the archives of The Henry Ford, viewing artifacts and hearing stories not generally available to the public. They will explore Maker Faire Detroit, witnessing a yearly gathering of innovators from all over the area who come to show off their ideas, designs, and products. The winners can even take in a movie at our Giant Screen Experience if they wish!
Finally, to pull the week together for our winners, members of our Learning and Engagement team will instruct the educators in the use of our innovation curricula, giving them a new tool to use with their students.
“…I was truly inspired to bring it all back to my classroom and my students... The unit on innovative thinking truly transformed the way my students think and approach problems and projects.” - Jamie Ewing, 2015 Teacher Innovator Award winner.
When it’s all said and done, the teachers who win this contest will leave The Henry Ford with a number of gifts, a beautiful award handcrafted in our glass shop, and a new understanding of the concept and practices of Innovation. Most importantly though is they will leave The Henry Ford knowing that their efforts in education are appreciated and that they are not alone in the struggle to reform our classrooms as these experiences will be shared as a group, a group of equally innovative educators and future collaborators.
“I now have nine additional educators I feel connected to for future inspirational teaching lessons”. - Maureen Foelkl, 2016 Teacher Innovator Award winner.
If you know an educator, or are one yourself, who is innovative, creative, and resourceful, please take the time to apply for the Teacher Innovator Awards.
“The Henry Ford Innovative Educator award has been so much more than just being recognized. It is truly about helping to transform me as an educator, thinker, and problem solvers. It has inspired me!”- Jamie Ewing, 2015 Teacher Innovator Award winner
Frederick Rubin is the Coordinator for The Learning and Engagement Department at The Henry Ford. Blog posts by Laura Bradley and Maureen Foelkl regarding their experiences at The Henry Ford’s Teacher Innovator Awards can be found here and here.
innovation learning, education, by Frederick Rubin, Teacher Innovator Awards, teachers and teaching
For the past two years The Henry Ford has had the privilege of honoring a select group of educators who demonstrated the ability to teach their subjects in innovative ways, inspiring their students to think creatively. They accomplish in their classrooms what we at The Henry Ford strive to accomplish every day with our guests; conveying innovation concepts and practices.
Now, The Henry Ford and Litton Entertainment are proud to sponsor a third year of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation Teacher Innovator Awards so that another crop of educators can be honored. Just as The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation seeks out the stories of forward-looking visionaries and innovators each week, we are looking for teachers who showcase an original and creative approach to teaching, inspire innovation in their students, exhibit resourcefulness, engage students, and are making a positive impact on not only their classroom but their community, colleagues, administrators, school, and/or district.
Twenty teachers in total will receive prizes, with the top ten grand prize winners receiving a week-long “Innovation Immersion Experience” at The Henry Ford. Winners will be announced in June.
Nominate yourself or a teacher you know by completing the online submission form (click on the “apply now” button). Tell us what innovation means to you and show us how you teach it to your students. Be sure to include supporting materials that show an innovative teaching methodology, curriculum, and/or model in action. All entries must be submitted by the February 28, 2017 deadline.
Please be sure to read our official rules carefully before nominating. For more details about the awards or the television show please go here.
We look forward to learning how teachers across the country are innovating in their classrooms.
Frederick Rubin is Engagement and Learning Coordinator at The Henry Ford.
innovation learning, Teacher Innovator Awards, teachers and teaching, education, by Frederick Rubin
Maureen Foelkl is one of this year's Teacher Innovator Award winners. She shared her thoughts about her experience here at The Henry Ford; take a look here to see the rest of this year's winners.
From the moment I spied the entrance gates to The Henry Ford it reminded me of Disneyland as a child. The anticipation of the innovative educators’ experience was coming to fruition. The Henry Ford's Frederick Rubin and Phil Grumm greeted the innovative teacher group with a warm welcome and an introduction to our week.
Our days were thoughtfully planned. We began the experience interacting with modern day creators at Maker Faire Detroit. We were given the privilege of awarding blue ribbons to makers we believe captured the true innovative spirit. There were many creative ideas that it made it virtually impossible to isolate just two blue ribbon winners.
I was personally inspired by a 12-year-old maker that had taken used clothing and converted the rags into costumes that young adults stylishly wore. He started his own YouTube channel to show others how they could create their own woven masterpieces. The maker ribbon was his true inspiration to continue his own innovative creations. As an educator, this is what I value. An avenue to make students feel valued and successful.
The team from The Henry Ford is a phenomenal group of leaders that made the Teacher Innovator award meaningful. Cynthia Jones, Marc Greuther, Catherine Tuczek, Ben Seymour, Ryan Spencer, along with the most pleasant and helpful group of employees contributed to the positive experience at the museum. I now have nine additional educators I feel connected to for future inspirational teaching lessons.
I am creating an E-STEM unit of study for outdoor school. The Henry Ford's website will be invaluable as I begin to generate meaningful lessons. One of my lessons, on John Muir the expert navigator will expose students to the history of direction. Young navigators will learn to use a compass. I will have students take a brief overview from and research the history of the compass. For me, the lesson comes to life because I was fortunate to have a behind the scenes tour of the archives. Standing inches away from this compass allows me to tell a story behind the piece. I will share the knowledge to the next generation of learners in hope that they too will become explorers of their world.
The 2016 Teacher Innovator Award Winners: Far Back: Scott Weiler. From Left to right: Fabian Reid, Catherine Turso, George Hademenos, Jill Badalamenti, Cindy Lewis, Leon Tynes, Tracie Adams, Maureen Foelkl. (Unable to attend: Jessica Klass)
I highly encourage teachers to visit Henry Ford Museum and take time to introduce your students to the world of innovation via their website to inspire the creativity in teaching and learning.
Maureen Foelkl is a Teacher Innovator Award Winner at The Henry Ford and is a teacher at Chapman Hill Elementary in Salem, Oregon.
education, teachers and teaching, by Maureen Foelkl, Teacher Innovator Awards
Henry Ford collected many highly significant buildings for the historical and educational institution that would become Greenfield Village—Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park Lab, the Wright Brothers’ Cycle Shop, and Luther Burbank’s Garden Office among them. However, some of the buildings destined for the Village had a very personal connection to Henry Ford’s own history. One such building is the Chapman Family Home, where John B. Chapman and his wife Susie lived during the 1870s. Chapman was a teacher first at the Scotch Settlement School and then at Miller School—and at both schools was a favorite of one of his young pupils, Henry Ford. We’ve just digitized a few photographs related to the home and to the teacher, including this portrait of Chapman himself. Visit our digital collections to see more images of the Chapman home and the family and learn about the teacher who inspired Henry Ford.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
education, teachers and teaching, Scotch Settlement School, school, home life, Henry Ford, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, digital collections, by Ellice Engdahl
When I told some of my teacher colleagues that I was planning a field trip to The Henry Ford's Greenfield Village for my world history classes, many reacted with surprise. They asked, “What does Greenfield Village have to do with world history?” At face value, their reaction seems justified. What does the Model T or the Wright Brothers have to do with the development of writing and agriculture? Well, Greenfield Village has the ability to make both ancient and modern history come alive.
With a little creative planning, the buildings and artifacts on display in Greenfield Village were the ideal companion to my current world history unit. I’m teaching about the Neolithic Era of world history, which is from approximately the end of the last Ice Age (10,000 years ago) until about 3,000 BC. The Agricultural Revolution began around 5,000 BC. It is when humanity moved away from hunting and gathering, instead domesticating animals and beginning to plant crops. They also developed tools like the plow and used canals to irrigate crops and fields.
My students do not have a very concrete understanding of agriculture, as they come from an urban/suburban area. They have seen farms on television and in movies. But they have not had the personal experiences that would bring the agricultural revolution to life.
Fortunately Greenfield Village allowed my students to experience in person a farm that employs principles of the agricultural revolution, like using domesticated animals as a source of power. Using Firestone Farm in Greenfield Village, my colleagues and I constructed a “farm-focused” field trip as a component of our world history course.
The people, animals, and artifacts at Firestone Farm made our world history unit come alive. The employees and volunteers were happy to explain how and why farmers have used and interacted with domesticated animals. The students were excited to see the Merino sheep, draft horses, pigs, and chickens in and around the barnyard at Firestone. They gained a greater understanding of the tools and technology created during the agricultural revolution by examining the plows, seed drills, and other pieces of equipment in the Firestone Barn. Reading about a barn, or seeing one on TV doesn’t compare to actually stepping foot in one. Holding the tools, watching the animals, and smelling the barn did far more to impress upon my students the rigors of farming more than any textbook could.
The Henry Ford is, and should be, a favorite destination for American history field trips. But with the help of The Henry Ford, creative teachers can also make textbooks come alive for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), art, economics, civics, world history, and English language arts.
Matthew Mutschler is a veteran teacher currently teaching middle school in the Warren Consolidated School District. He has been involved with The Henry Ford for a number of years, and is an alumnus of both The Henry Ford Teacher Fellow Program and the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks of American History and Culture workshop America’s Industrial Revolution at The Henry Ford.
This #GivingTuesday consider helping us bring more teachers and students on field trips to The Henry Ford by giving a gift of at least $8.
by Matthew Mutschler, agriculture, education, childhood, teachers and teaching, field trips, #GivingTuesday
Just Added to Our Digital Collections: Scotch Settlement School Images
For a few years starting at age seven, Henry Ford attended a one-room schoolhouse, the Scotch Settlement School, located on Warren Avenue in what was then Dearborn Township, Michigan. When he was developing Greenfield Village, Henry Ford acquired the school, relocated it to the Village, and opened it as a multi-grade classroom for the Edison Institute Schools in fall 1929. We’ve just digitized 75 images of the school on its original site, including this well-labeled image of the 1925 funeral of Mrs. Susie Chapman, wife of one of Henry Ford’s favorite teachers, John Chapman. (Chapman himself had died two decades earlier; his family home and another school at which he taught are also preserved in Greenfield Village.) Henry and Clara Ford appear at the far left. Visit our digital collections to view more images and artifacts related to the school.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections & Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
teachers and teaching, childhood, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, Henry Ford, Michigan, school, by Ellice Engdahl, digital collections, Scotch Settlement School
Greenpower goes global
When high school drafting design instructor Mike Evans discovered Greenpower, the academic electric car competition, he had no idea how far it would take him and his students. In less than three years, the team from Alabama’s Huntsville Center of Technology’s (HCT) went from drafting Solid Edge models for the UK based competition, to becoming the first international high school team, and now starting the competition in America.
“It started with an introduction from Mike Brown who oversees Siemens’ mainstream engineering global academic programs,” said Evans. “We had a long relationship with Siemens so he asked us to reverse engineer the F-24 kit car in Siemens Solid Edge software for Greenpower’s UK CEO Jeremy Way. When Jeremy saw the students’ models he invited us to build a car and enter the race.”
Greenpower started back in 1999 with a dream of supporting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education. Building and racing the electric cars inspires and engages students of all ages to pursue STEM subjects. Continue Reading
philanthropy, race cars, engineering, environmentalism, teachers and teaching, educational resources, childhood, alternative fuel vehicles, electricity, cars, racing, education, innovation learning
Many modern students and parents have been the proud recipients of notices or awards sent home from school recognizing any number of positive behaviors. However, this tradition is not new. We’ve just digitized about 60 examples of school rewards of merit, mainly dating from the late 18th through late 19th centuries, designed to be handed out by teachers to exemplary students. The colorful papers rewarded students for conduct such as academic achievement, good behavior, diligence in study, punctual attendance, correct deportment, and attentiveness. You can imagine how excited young Jared Long must have been to have received two honors from the “Bank of Industry” in this example from 1853. Visit our collections website to browse the rest of the rewards.
Ellice Engdahl is Digital Collections and Content Manager at The Henry Ford.
teachers and teaching, education, 19th century, 18th century, school, digital collections, childhood, by Ellice Engdahl
A few years ago, when The Henry Ford embarked on its "teaching innovation" initiative, we did not anticipate that it would rapidly evolve into so many different forms and lead us to so many new opportunities and unique partnerships. Innovation 101, our core curriculum for inspiring innovation, has proven to be a highly adaptive and dynamic teaching tool that continues to be applied in a wide variety of settings, engaging multiple audiences to think and act like innovators. In some instances, we are the direct drivers; in others, we are the catalysts nurturing innovative thinking among stakeholders. Here are some of the ways we are teaching innovation, learning in the process and innovating new applications. We consider our efforts a humble start and look forward to more exciting possibilities unfolding in the future. Continue Reading
educational resources, teachers and teaching, by Paula Gangopadhyay, education, innovation learning
teachers and teaching, school, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, educational resources, education, by Catherine Tuczek
