148: Mentoring Students and New Teachers to Take Flight

Kimberly Radostits is the 2022 Illinois Teacher of the Year, and she is focused on supporting students to grow and take flight to their maximum potential. She has spent her entire career building a program that targets at-risk freshmen to increase the graduation rate dramatically.  

• Community-based program for at-risk freshmen to help them sustain a successful high school career.

• New teachers have one mentor, as opposed to a grade-level partner.

• The freshman onboarding program has dramatically decreased the amount of students not graduating.

• Motivate students with data and allow them to access the data we are utilizing to track their success so they can invest in it themselves.

• Use the ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction) as a framework for designing all lessons.

• Create systems to allow students to be challenged, build self-confidence, and thrive in the classroom.

Twitter: @Srtarad

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