Teachers

KBAY Teacher of the Month

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The KBAY Teacher of the Month for April is Stephanie Lewis, who teachers 6-8th grade Visual Arts at Warren Hyde Middle School in Cupertino. Stephanie will receive a $500 Innovation Grant for her classroom from the San José Education Foundation.

The KBAY Teacher of the Month program is a partnership between 94.5 KBAY FM and the San Jose Education Foundation, the leading education foundation serving students, families and teachers of San Jose.

Like you, we at KBAY believe that teachers have a tremendous impact on our children’s lives, so we created the KBAY Teacher of the Month program with the San Jose Education Foundation to honor South Bay teachers who are making a difference by creating memorable, interactive and enhanced learning experiences for their students.

Warren Hyde Middle School in Cupertino. Stephanie will receive a $500 Innovation Grant for her classroom from the San José Education Foundation.

"As a teacher, I get to be all of my favorite things: an advocate for children and families, an actress, a curriculum designer, and an artist. I love the challenge of helping all children to see how art is a significant part of history and culture, and then encourage each individual to create his or her own works of art to contribute"

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Stephanie Lewis is a fifth year teacher who previously taught for a year in Minnesota. She has her Bachelors degree from Bethel University in Minnesota and is currently completing a Masters at San Jose State University.

Stephanie will use her SJEF Teacher Innovation Grant to produce digital art galleries and portfolios on her class website. She will also create podcast tours of the artwork on campus. The grant will be used to purchase a digital camera to implement the project. "Using this technology, the students are not only introspective about their own artistic growth, they also get to reach out to other students and community members to share what they are learning. This helps our art program to be community centered and outreaching.."

Hyde Middle School is an exceptional school with rich diversity and broad learning opportunities. We house the ELD (English Language Development) programs, as well as the Autistic/Asperger's program. This means that we have students from all over the world who are learning English, students who already have strong academic English skills and social cognitive students-basically the most diverse school I could think of. "The biggest challenge that I face is the personal challenge of being able to effectively teach all of my students, who have exceptionally diverse learning needs. This challenge, I believe, forces me to be a better teacher because I have to take so many different learners into account when planning a lesson." This SJEF grant will help Stephanie meet this challenge.

Congratulations to Stephanie Lewis, KBAY's Teacher of the Month for April.