“I give them a minute to just get everything situated,� says the Orange County Public School teacher, “and we normally do a bunch of reading in the morning.�

Among their books of choice: If You Only Knew What Failure Could Do — the elementary school educator and two-time Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ graduate’s newly-released children’s book that’s inspired by her failures as a student to empower readers to overcome their own.

Failure is not an option. Why not? Who says so? Giessuebel believes failure is inevitable and wants children to have a healthy relationship with it. Only then will they learn the strength they achieve from failure is something they can only get from failed experiences.

Here Giessuebel shares more about her career in education, journey to becoming an author and the important message within her first book.

I was destined to teach.

I’ve always had a passion for working with children. I actually got inspired to teach by my first-grade teacher who’s a character in my book, Mrs. Daniels. Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ is really known for its , so there was no doubt when I graduated high school that I would go there because I knew the quality of education and the quality of professors that I would have would be unmatched to any other university.

The road to becoming an educator was rocky.

I was always never good at taking tests my whole life. I almost gave up teaching because I couldn’t pass the state exams. My brother has been a heavy supporter of me wanting to go into education. I remember when I didn’t pass some of the certification exams, he paid for my retakes without me even knowing. He was a huge part in how this failure has come to not be a failure anymore, but instead my testimony, my story. Without people like him, I don’t think I would be where I’m at today.

I feel the buildup of testing pressure in my own classroom.

It’s frustrating. In education today we see there’s so much pressure on these tests. I see students struggling with testing anxiety. They could be a straight-A student but not pass a test and then are told they can’t move on to the next grade. I’m trying to change that narrative. I’m open to talking about failure with my students. I tell them that we all are going to fail. I think it’s a balance between communication, encouragement and transparency as an educator to a student. It’s all about relationships and them knowing that I don’t value a test over them.

When I could write a book about anything, I chose to write about my failures.

I’ve always been super determined in life to not just be a teacher, but be a teacher with a purpose. I actually saw another educator write a book with children’s illustrator Diana McDermott. I was looking at the book and thought, “Why can’t I do this? I have a story to share.”

My 32-page children’s book is inspired by real life events that I’ve gone through. A boy named Thomas, who’s named after my brother, is called upon to read out loud in class. He has all this confidence as he’s reading, but then comes across a word that he doesn’t know. The fear of failure takes over him until his teacher, Mrs. Daniels, tells him that everybody fails and shares her own struggles with learning and needing a tutor. Through his teacher, Thomas gets to see failure from a different lens and realizes that it isn’t a failure, it’s just a learning step to get you to where you need to be.

It was pretty clear on my heart what I wanted to write about. Diana loved the story and believed in my vision, and that’s how the book was born. At first when I told my students that I was an author, they were like, “Oh, are you famous now?” No, I’m not famous, but look, an actual book came out of my failure. It’s proof that good things do come from hard times.

What has failure taught me? To believe in myself.

I was always never good at taking tests. But when it really mattered to get my degree at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, my failed experiences taught me that I can do it. I had to believe in myself because I’m the one taking the test. If everything was easy and we never got anything wrong, we’d never grow. So I think my failed experiences have built perseverance, resilience, strength and this unshakable belief in myself that I can do hard things. I’m proud of the failures, and now I’m not ashamed to talk about them. I hope that I can share this message with others: that we should be talking about our failures because we have something to learn from them.

This past summer, teachers from East River High School, Wekiva High School, South Creek Middle School, and Mollie Ray Elementary spent time alongside Associate Professor of Physics Adrienne Dove and her team of undergraduate and graduate students at . Dove is working on a NASA-funded experiment (Strata-2P) aimed at understanding the mechanical interactions between particles that make up granular materials, such as rock, sand, and dust, in variable gravitational accelerations, including those on the moon, Mars, and asteroids.

“Our research has applications to planetary surface studies, such as those focused on the moon and asteroids, and is relevant to both human and robotic exploration missions, such as the upcoming NASA Artemis and VIPER missions,� says Dove, who has had various experiments fly aboard parabolic aircraft and private rockets in the past few years. “The results of the Strata-2P experiments will offer insights into how the geometry of the grains, like shape and size, and varying gravitational effects contribute to how granular materials pack and settle during planetary exploration activities. We’ll be exploring different tools and techniques to interact with those surfaces.�

NASA plans to land astronauts on the moon’s south pole by 2024. It would signify the first time Americans have gone back to the moon since the Apollo 17 mission of 1972. For the past several years NASA and commercial space companies have been working to get a spacecraft and supporting equipment in place to make the mission a success. Figuring out how to minimize the impact of space dust on the spacecraft, instruments and people is among the many challenges scientists are facing as part of the mission. Dove’s area of expertise includes studying these dusty interactions on planetary surfaces.

Dove knows first-hand that involving high school and college students in hands-on research is a great way to prepare them for the workforce. Research that can easily tie into a problem NASA or private industry is trying to solve is a great motivator for students, she says. But having classrooms of students in the lab just isn’t feasible. Dove worked with Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ physics instructor and former high school teacher Adam LaMee to develop the Teacher-in-Residence program as part of this project. The program helps classroom teachers get a taste of space research, which they can then use to craft lessons and activities for students across different levels and backgrounds.

Over several weeks this summer, local teachers were able to participate in a range of activities in the lab from programming microprocessors, conducting image analysis using Python, generating data analysis and visualization, and fabricating devices needed for Dove’s research. They will continue interacting with the lab throughout the school year as the project progresses and they implement the lessons into their curriculum. They will also participate in the bi-weekly science team meetings (held virtually to accommodate the distributed team) and the planning process for the flight. The participants will receive stipends for their efforts and the teachers may also get a chance to fly aboard a zero-G flight with the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ research team later this year.

“I was beyond excited to have the opportunity to work with graduate students on an important project that is testing real world scientific data,� says Shelley Bullard, who teaches at South Creek Middle School. “The fact that the projects actually go up into space makes it even more exciting. I’ve also interviewed undergraduate and graduate students in the lab so that I can show my middle school students how interesting the physics projects are and to give them an idea of what they can become in this field. I believe they will love the projects and may be encouraged to choose science careers as a result.�

Dove and LaMee will be in touch with the participants throughout the school year to offer expertise as the teachers develop activities. They’ll also want to hear how the activities translated in the classroom. The teachers are chronicling the project on a  to bring the content to a wider audience.

“It was fun meeting them and getting started,� Dove says. “They’ve brainstormed some really creative ideas, so it’ll be awesome to see what they develop for their students. For me it was really a great learning experience so far because I’ve never directly worked with K-12 on a project like this before. But having the opportunity to help teachers ignite the imagination and passion for science, I’m all for that.�

A year before the first students arrived on the then Florida Technological University campus in 1968, he came to the university to draft the operating plan for the College of Education’s undergraduate program. As founding chairman he also began recruiting faculty and establishing the academic majors in the college’s departments. (FTU was renamed Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ in 1978.)

Through his Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ career until he retired in 1995, he remained active in all developmental phases of the college, including creating masters and doctoral programs, obtaining program accreditation, and acquiring grants to improve the quality of teacher-education programs.

“He was a forward thinker,â€� says Chuck Dziuban, director of Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness, who was Hall’s research assistant at the University of Miami before being recruited as part of the FTU faculty.

“He thought FTU was the prototype university of the future. One day he just said he was leaving to go to FTU because of all of its potential,� Dziuban says.

Hall was born in Midland, Ohio, the son of Harry and Florence Hall. After serving four years in the Army during the Korean War, he left the military as a first lieutenant and became a high school mathematics teacher in Dade County, Florida.

He and his wife, Velma, were married in 1951 and had three children: James ’77, Tom ’80 and the late Nancy (Hines) ’84, all of them Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ graduates while he was working at the university, and four grandchildren.

“Dad came from a farm and moved out to Chuluota, Florida, in 1971 and we just grew up enjoying the outdoors,� Tom Hall says.

“Dad was proud of FTU and its evolution into Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ to where it is today. Hard to believe how far it has come in such a short amount of time.â€�

Prior to coming to Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, Hall worked at the University of Miami for 10 years, his first assignment as an assistant to the dean of the College of Education. Hall continued his graduate studies and received his Doctor of Education from the University of Florida. He returned to Miami in 1961 as a faculty member serving as supervisor of secondary student teaching and director of the South Florida School Desegregation Center.

He finished his service at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ with five years of teaching during which time he also supervised student teachers in Central Florida’s public schools. In 1998, he was awarded the status of professor emeritus in recognition of his distinguished service to the university and his contributions to improving education in Florida.

“The goal is to promote as much independence as possible for the child while they are learning basic programming skills.�
— Rebecca Hines

The project is funded through a $2.5 million Stepping-up Technology grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs. The grant will be split with UCP, with Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ receiving almost $1 million. The team was selected from a national pool of applications, and only two grants were funded.

The goal is to create a national model that can be replicated in urban, suburban and rural communities.

“For students with autism, communication is a primary area that needs intervention. Students with autism struggle with communication skills and, as a result, it’s often hard for them to make friends and to be as fully independent as their peers,� says Rebecca Hines, associate professor of exceptional student education and one of the co-principal investigators.

Technology is a medium that children on the autism spectrum enjoy. “Video and technology are more predictable and less noisy,� says Hines. “Persons with autism have a need for structure. The real world is unpredictable. If I watch a video and then hit replay, I know exactly what I’m going to get the next time.�

Students will wear a watch-like device that monitors the users’ biometrics. It will be used to determine the level of stress and comfort while the student is using the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½-created artificial intelligence program, Zoobee’s World. The artificial intelligence program will be delivered through a portable room outfitted with a mirror, a small social robot and a screen to display Zoobee, the avatar character that looks like a teddy bear.

Zoobee will provide instruction on how to code while modeling social skills.

“Zoobee will model appropriate social skills and interactions — constantly — so that the student receives all of the instructions through the avatar,� says Hines. “The goal is to promote as much independence as possible for the child while they are learning basic programming skills.�

During the first year of the study, the team will work with third- through fifth-grade students with autism spectrum disorders and other disabilities at one UCP school site in Orlando. Eventually the study will scale up to include 10 schools across Florida, including eight UCP campuses in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties.

In the later years of the grant, the team will work with two rural schools through their partnership with the Institute of Small and Rural School Districts.

“The rural piece is important here because we know that the kind of technology in this project would take so long to make it out to a rural school, and even then, they wouldn’t necessarily have the resources or the training or personnel locally who could help them run this,� says Hines.

How Will the Study Work?

The project involves three phases. In year one, six to 10 students will work with Zoobee as the team finalizes all aspects of the artificial intelligence to help the students program the robot and monitor their facial expressions, says Lisa Dieker, a Pegasus Professor of exceptional student education, Lockheed Martin Eminent Scholar Chair and co-principal investigator on the grant.

“This is a unique and new way of looking at how to develop social skills in kids with disabilities.�
— Ilene Wilkins

In the second phase, Zoobee will support students with disabilities as they coach a peer without a disability through the programming process. This second stage of the project elevates a child with autism, who may traditionally struggle with communication and emotional regulation, to the spot of a leader among their peers, explains Hines. “It’s actually highly motivating for that person. It will change the dynamic in the classroom. They will be going from using those nonverbal skills initially to using even more elaborate communication skills to build relationships with other people.�

In the third phase, the artificial intelligence avatar, Zoobee, will be available on the students’ personal device during their mathematics instruction. “The goal is to provide a virtual artificial intelligence coach for the student in STEM-related areas from coding to mathematics instruction,� explains Dieker.

“This is a unique and new way of looking at how to develop social skills in kids with disabilities,� says Ilene Wilkins, principal investigator and the CEO of UCP of Central Florida. “The idea that we’re going to be able to look at some best practices, some new ways of looking at how we impact kids, is always exciting.�

Wilkins says they’re also excited to have a model that can be replicated throughout their campuses and eventually reach even more students beyond UCP of Central Florida. In addition to providing most of the sites, UCP will also prepare teachers to work with the technology for the project.

“When we’ve completed the study, we should be able to take the patterns we’ve found and make a difference for kids who struggle with social-emotional executive functioning connections,� says Dieker.

The final part of the project is creating an open-access website detailing their work, all of which — including Zoobee — will be available for teachers to use.

“This idea of creating something that can be distributed is the cornerstone of this project. UCP of Central Florida is a great sandbox for us because we can build it there, but the main goal is to be able to make the same kind of difference we do locally with one school with schools nationally,� says Hines.

—

The other researchers from Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ include: Charles Hughes, Pegasus Professor of computer science and co-director of the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Synthetic Reality Lab, and Kathleen Ingraham, program director of the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Center for Research in Education Simulation Technologies.

Lisa Dieker joined Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s faculty in 2003. Her primary research interests involve the collaboration between general and special education. She focuses also on opportunities for students with disabilities in the STEM fields in urban and rural settings. Dieker received her doctorate in special education and curriculum and instruction from the University of Illinois.

Rebecca Hines joined Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s faculty in 1999. Her primary interests involve working with students with emotional-behavioral disorders, preparing leaders in special education, and incorporating innovative and practical uses of technology in the classroom. She co-led the team to create UCP of Central Florida’s charter and has served as distance learning coordinator for the school during the COVID-19 pandemic. She received her doctorate in curriculum and instruction of teacher education and special education from the University of South Florida.

This is important as first-generation college students make up about one-third of undergraduate populations but are more likely to not earn their degree than their counterparts.

“As universities become more digitized, my research team and I wondered how well do universities share support services for first-generation students online?,â€� says Amanda Wilkerson ’ 16 EdD, study co-author and an assistant professor in Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s College of Community Innovation and Education. “Essentially, how much time would it take for a first-generation student to locate information specifically for them, that could assist them academically?â€�

To find this out, the researchers performed a content analysis of websites of 14 higher education institutions located in the Southeast U.S. that are part of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities, one of the largest organizations of urban metropolitan institutions. Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ is not part of the coalition and also was not part of the study.

They chose metropolitan universities because of their large populations of first-generation students.

To collect their data, they performed a search for “first-generation� on the institution websites, which took them to the Home, About Us and Financial Aid pages.

However, the first-generation information from those locations was not easily assessible or in a central location, says Lynell Hodge ’16EdD , the study’s lead author and assistant director of assignments for Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s .

“We found there were gaps in information that resulted in a first-generation student having to click around quite a bit to locate information,� Hodge says.

The researchers recommended universities create a landing page specifically for first-generation college students as one way to reduce the number of clicks and make information easier to find. They also suggested providing content that helps prospective students determine if they are “first-generation,� as many might not be familiar with the term.

Marcus Frazier is a first-generation college student from Baltimore and a graduate student in Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s . He says challenges he faced as an undergraduate student at Bethune-Cookman University were lack of resources and financial support, issues that became even more apparent when out-of-town family emergencies occurred.

He says some of the most important resources for first-generation college students are those for scholarship and grant opportunities.

“Some first-generation students are first-generation college students because their parents may not have been able to afford college or finish,� Frazier says. “I believe this is extremely helpful for financial matters.�

Emmanuela Pierre Stanislaus, associate director of Career and Talent Development at Florida International University’s College of Engineering, also co-authored the study. Hodge and Stanislaus were first-generation college students themselves, and Wilkerson was a first-generation graduate student.

Wilkerson received her doctorate of education in higher education and policy studies from Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ and joined Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s Department of Educational Leadership and Higher Education in 2019. Hodge received her doctorate of education in educational leadership and policy studies from Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ and joined Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s Housing and Residence Life in 2007.

Rougeux is one of 20 OCPS teachers who will graduate this week with a Master of Education in K-8 Mathematics and Science, returning to their classrooms with the latest strategies for teaching elementary and middle school students. An additional 78 Orange County teachers remain in the program and will graduate during the next two years.

What Rougeux and her fellow teachers in the program won’t have at graduation is any educational debt. An endowment from Lockheed Martin and funding from OCPS cover tuition and fees for the master’s degree program, which was designed to bolster science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, retain current teachers and build the talent pipeline.

“This program is incredibly vital in filling the intense need for capable STEM teachers in Florida and across the nation,� says Tom Mirek, a vice president of engineering and technology at Lockheed Martin. “Lockheed Martin invests in master’s degrees for educators because we believe in the power of teachers to inspire the next generation of students who will become tomorrow’s engineers, scientists and technologists that’ll shape the future of our world for decades.�

For Rougeux, a fifth grade teacher at Lake Como School, the dream of getting a graduate degree seemed financially out of reach. She has fostered 11 children in the last five years, ranging from infants she cared for less than a week to siblings who lived with her for two years. “I could not have afforded to pay a babysitter and take classes,� says Rougeux, who is in the process of adopting a 4-year-old boy she’s been fostering.

To be eligible for the program, teachers must teach in an elementary school or teach math or science in a middle school. Priority is given to those in Title I schools, which have high concentrations of underserved students, and who will commit to continue teaching for at least three years after earning their master’s degree. The program comes at a time when Florida is focusing on increasing student math scores, a move that should help prepare students for what is projected to be a 10 percent growth in STEM jobs nationally between 2018 and 2028.

“This partnership speaks to Lockheed Martin’s long-term vision for increasing STEM professionals in our community. Training high-quality math and science teachers is an investment in our instructors as well as students for years to come,� says OCPS Superintendent Barbara Jenkins ’83 ’86MEd ’96EdD. “The opportunity for our teachers to further their own education helps OCPS keep talented and experienced teachers in the classroom.�

While other states have programs offering financial support to the teacher-talent pipeline, they’re primarily for undergraduate degrees, according to Pegasus Professor and Lockheed Martin Eminent Scholar Lisa Dieker, who heads the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ program. “Free degrees to elevate you in the profession are not common,â€� Dieker says.

The six-semester program takes two years to complete and is taught by a dozen Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ faculty members in math and science specialties. The classes alternate between two locations — Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s main campus and Carver Middle School — to make them as accessible as possible to the teachers, who attend two nights a week. The classes supplement the science and math coursework that’s not included in a general elementary education degree, as well as encourage student-driven learning and teacher leadership skills.

Graduating teachers “should be the ‘go to’ person in their schools and in the district, and they should be the advocate and voice for learning in math and science in their schools,� Dieker says.

Rougeux, a 17-year teaching veteran, has already seen an impact in her classroom. “A lot of what I learned 20 years ago is not relevant,� she says. She’s teaching students to understand the math and not just memorize it. “There’s that ‘aha’ moment when they realize they understand the concept,� says Rougeux. “I tell my students — I don’t want you to have that moment in college, I want you to have that now.�

“It’s really changed, I think, who I am as an educator,� says Jessica Granahan ’10, a fourth grade teacher at Lawton Chiles Elementary School who will also graduate in December. “Instead of just standing in front of the room and showing them what to do, we’ve learned to be more facilitators in the classroom. We assign students tasks and let them talk things out. We walk around the room and use questions to gauge student understanding.�

Every member of Granahan’s class achieved a satisfactory performance score on the mathematics portion of the Florida Standards Assessments, something she attributes in part to what’s she’s learned in the program. Granahan, who majored in English language arts education at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, was named her school’s 2019 Teacher of the Year and expects to graduate with a 4.0 GPA.

Providing scholarships for teachers pursing master’s degrees is one of two programs offered through the Lockheed Martin/Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Academy. A second program, Transition to Mathematics and Science Teaching or T-MAST, is an accelerated graduate program designed to prepare science and technology professionals currently in the work force to transition to middle school teaching positions.  Since the Academy began in 1992, more than 560 students have received varying degrees of financial support to continue their education. The latest group of 98 is the first to have all the costs covered.

“We’re making sure the kids in our communities think differently about careers in STEM,� says Dieker.  “And I believe we’ll see that even more in the future.�

I have devoted my research career to trying to understand and influence teachers’ beliefs about students and learning. Time and time again in my research I have seen deeply rooted misunderstandings subvert well-intentioned efforts to improve the classroom learning environment.

Consider these examples from my 20+ years of observing public schools:

• A math teacher, known for being creative and focused on problem-solving, solves the problems for her students to keep “orderâ€� in the classroom. This same teacher believes it’s fine when students fail her algebra class because grades should fall on the “bell curve.â€� The misconceptions here are that an orderly classroom equals learning and that a description of ability in the general population (the bell curve) should be applied to classroom instruction. Instead, classes ought to be focused on content mastery (100 percent success) rather than innate ability distribution (50 percent of students below the average score).
• A school renowned for its student-centered approach has a few teachers who shame and control students, yelling at them when they step out of line, calling them names when they are unruly.
• A school that’s considered progressive that doesn’t know what to do with its low socioeconomic students who find their way to that school, so they end up on behavior plans or stuck in the hall playing with staples in the bulletin board rather than inside the classroom learning.
• An “Aâ€� school that makes students sit the entire lunch period in silence rather than talking with friends because the teachers do not know how to handle the noise level in the cafeteria.

The common denominator in these scenarios is one of control and power. As a parent and an educator, I, too, struggle with these issues with my own students and my own children. How much should we control kids, and how much should we allow them to have a voice in their learning?

As I reflect on these issues, I have started to formulate my “10 Commandments of Teaching� that I think should be the starting ground for good instruction.

To be clear, I’m not blaming teachers here. Teacher professional development is woefully inadequate and underfunded in most schools, and mentoring programs are rare or superficial.  Plus, teaching is an onerous, heavily regulated, poorly compensated profession that adds greatly to teacher stress and leads to high teacher turnover and lack of qualified candidates for hire.

These draft “commandments� are my attempt to set a minimum level of professionalism in the classroom. And I think they are suitable for all levels of instruction, from preschool through graduate education. I welcome thoughts, additions, or revisions as I continue to try to sort out how to help students have positive learning experiences in their lives.

10 Commandments of Teaching

1. Learn everything you can about your students. Work with their personalities and interests to help them capitalize on their strengths and shore up their weak areas.
2. Give students reasonable choices about their learning and how the classroom operates.
3. Be prepared for class but be flexible to capitalize on teachable moments.
4. Have activities with multiple entry points for those at different skill levels.
5. Avoid the shallows; go deep rather than wide.
6. Give students extended time to work on meaningful assignments.
7. Find ways to highlight the good in each of your students. Encourage them to develop their best selves.
8. Treat your students with dignity, kindness and respect, even if they don’t treat you that way.
9. Keep your personal life out of the classroom.
10. Most of all, remember that you hold so much power over your students: Wield it wisely. Wield it kindly. Wield it to bring out the best in them.

And, teachers, thank you for taking on an often thankless job in a world that needs you desperately.

Michele Gregoire Gill is program coordinator of the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s education doctorate in curriculum and instruction and is a professor of educational psychology in the Department of Learning Sciences and Educational Research. She can be reached at Michele.Gill@ucf.edu.

The Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum is a weekly series of opinion columns presented by Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Communications & Marketing. A new column is posted each Wednesday at http://today.ucf.edu and then broadcast between 7:50 and 8 a.m. Sunday on WÂ鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½-FM (89.9). The columns are the opinions of the writers, who serve on the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum panel of faculty members, staffers and students for a year.

I go to a great school. There’s no market for private schools in my rich Westchester, New York, suburb because the local schools are fantastic. The high school has a planetarium. The middle school has an Olympic-sized pool. Still, my classes are all mostly the same.

The teacher stands at the front and teaches, through lecture, activities, sometimes even games. But the classroom is tightly controlled, and students have no voice in what they are learning or how they learn it.

My social studies teacher is very good — I learn a lot of history in his class. He teaches me how to conduct research by identifying subtopics on index cards, then writing all the key facts I can find about each topic on cards related to that topic. At the end of the project, I have a fat stack of cards I can barely hold, and a solid foundation for a good paper on Andrew Jackson.

I begin to question the complacency I have had about my life.

The high school is even better. My ninth grade social studies teacher is unlike any other teacher I’ve ever had. I come alive in his class, begin to question the world and my place in it. He has us choose protest songs about the Vietnam War and analyze the lyrics. We watch Walkabout, an Australian film about the survival of two stranded children in the outback, and analyze the symbolism hidden throughout this disturbing film. I begin to question the complacency I have had about my life.

For our research projects, he lets us select our own among an abundant list of topics. I choose to analyze the tenets of Confucianism and how this philosophy shaped ancient cultures. In English class, we get to choose how to represent our understanding of To Kill a Mockingbird. I write a Ballad of Mayella Ewell from the perspective of Boo Radley. I do a good job; I care about this project. It sticks with me, even 35 years later.

So, if my middle school gave me a strong foundation in academics, my high school set me free to become deeply curious about the world.

When we move to Florida, the quality of my schooling declines, though I have a handful of really good teachers here, too. My 10th grade English teacher allows us to pick a major project that incorporates various techniques she’s taught us (sonnets, research, analysis), and I write Sonnet of Myself that is appropriately inward-focusing and poignant for a 15-year-old on the cusp of self-discovery. My 11^th grade English teacher, though, apologizes for assigning us a superficial three-page paper, as even this is too much to expect of us.

I’m now a mom of two boys, and through them I’ve witnessed good teaching and poor teaching, great schools and awful ones. The same undercurrent exists, though — this idea that we have to control children and make them learn according to our agenda. It’s even worse than when I was a kid, in this era of high-accountability and testing-saturated classrooms. There are so many reforms proposed to increase student achievement or engagement — inquiry learning, collaborative groups, differentiated learning, technology-based instruction.

And yet, to me, as someone who has spent much of her lifetime exploring questions related to schooling, I think they all miss the mark. We become so focused with single-pronged solutions that we miss the bigger picture — the overall end of education: What do we want our students to be like as a result of their school experiences?

I ended up becoming so fed up with the difficulty of improving schools via teaching teachers that I created a school where the culture would be different, focused on what really matters in education rather than on Band-Aid reforms.

It comes down to deep respect of each child and providing them with opportunities and guidance to nurture their unique gifts and talents…

And what does matter? It comes down to deep respect of each child and providing them with opportunities and guidance to nurture their unique gifts and talents in service to the problems that exist in the world. Sure, skills must be taught, too, but always in the context of authentic projects and endeavors related to big, important ideas. And school activities must engage students; learning independent of engagement does not stick, does not last. High expectations are critical, but they must be unique to the individual; not a rigid standard all must achieve, but a particular student’s best efforts.

I think we overcontrol and undervalue our students in the United States and that is to the detriment of each child and to our greater society as a whole, as all the underdeveloped talent lies dormant, unused — unless you happen to be the privileged child able to attend an exceptional school or someone who has parents able to engage them in meaningful extracurricular learning opportunities.

But this is what schools are for, and they are for ALL students, not just the privileged few, and we are wasting their potential. It’s not enough to create one good school. What is needed is a paradigm shift in how we think about education. Two of my colleagues and I want to be part of that conversation, so we created the Center for Creating and Sustaining Innovative Schools, which is part of the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ College of Community Innovation and Education.

It is time to create schools that are places of true excitement and passion for our kids — not just for them, but for the greater good of the world.

Michele Gregoire Gill is program coordinator of the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s education doctorate in curriculum and instruction and is a professor of educational psychology in the Department of Learning Sciences and Educational Research. She can be reached at Michele.Gill@ucf.edu.

The Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum is a weekly series of opinion columns presented by Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Communications & Marketing. A new column is posted each Wednesday at /news/ and then broadcast between 7:50 and 8 a.m. Sunday on WÂ鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½-FM (89.9). The columns are the opinions of the writers, who serve on the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Forum panel of faculty members, staffers and students for a year.

Carlos Gual, an instructor in COHPA’s Athletic Training Program, collaborated with Christopher Blackwell, an associate professor in the College of Nursing, to come up with the curriculum for the training.

“The AT program director reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in partnering with Athletic Training to conduct an IPE simulation with their students and the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner students,� said Blackwell, who is an advanced practice nurse and holds a PhD in public affairs. “And I said yes.�

“It was great,� added Gual. “You could see the eyes on both sides opening up and appreciating what the other side of the profession does.�

Gaul selected students from the newest athletic training cohort to give them a chance to practice their newfound knowledge.

Junior Alaina Locus is one of the athletic training students who attended and appreciated the opportunity.

“It gave me an opportunity to review the stuff we just learned, so I could be better prepared to do this in the real world,� she said.

Jenn Leuzinger, a nursing student, thought it was a great opportunity to learn and simultaneously practice what was being taught in the classroom.

“This event was beneficial due to its well-planned format: an overview provided at the beginning, the opportunity to apply proper technique and management in a variety of scenarios, followed by a debriefing of each one along with some feedback,� she said. “Although the scope of information provided is specific, the importance of it in regards to injury prevention is significant.�

Gual said the success of the program has prompted him to consider hosting the event annually. “To be put in a setting to know what happens when the patient leaves you, it better equips you for the situation.�

Both Locus and Leuzinger agreed that they would participate in similar trainings again. “It gives you a different perspective and a different learning environment to put your skills to the test,� Locus added.

During this year’s Hour of Code, students, faculty and staff members and the community will see exclusive “Star Wars: The Force Awakens� footage and learn about the computer coding that’s involved with sci-fi films. Then, they’ll be challenged to write their own line of code using their cell phone, tablet or laptop.

Hour of Code is a national movement to bring awareness to coding. More than 100 million students created a computer code during last year’s event, which President Obama also participated in.

Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ is one of the more than 156,000 Hour of Code host sites from more than 180 countries. Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s event will start at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 8, at the Education Complex Gym.

The event will be led by College of Education and Human Performance Assistant Professor Megan Nickels.

Prior to joining Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, Nickels volunteered as an educator at a children’s hospital in Peoria, Ill. She saw firsthand how critically and terminally ill children such as those with cancer struggled with understanding math, so she introduced programmable robots that can be coded by the kids into her lessons.

The robots are named Dash and Dot, and they’re produced by Wonder Workshop. Children use tablets to code the behaviors of the robots, and teachers use the robots to expose children to STEM principles in a fun and interactive way.

While working on her Ph.D. in Chicago, Nickels studied how robots like Dash and Dot impacted the children’s understanding of math and overall well-being. She found that when the children were working on math with the robots, their blood pressure went down. The children also reported having less of a chemo brain or feeling foggy or forgetful while they programmed the robots.

Children from BASE Camp Children’s Cancer Foundation in Winter Park—where Nickels currently volunteers—will be at Hour of Code to share how the robots are helping them learn.

Hour of Code is free and part of the College of Education and Human Performance’s Computer Science Education Week.