Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/371467
September 2014 isea.org • ISEA Communiqué 4 FIRST-CLASS MEMBERS Great Public Schools Network national education Association officials selected northwest Area education Agency teacher Marlin Jeffers as a facilitator for the neA Great public Schools (GpS) network. Jeffers is a member of the professional Staff Association and works at the northwest Area education Agency in Sioux center, iowa, as a K-12 consultant. the GpS network is an online community helping parents, teachers, education professionals and other community stakeholders exchange ideas and resources to improve educator effectiveness and student achievement. More than 1,000 people applied to for the inaugural leadership positions for the new online network. Jeffers is one of 60 neA officials selected for the positions. According to a news release, Jeffers and the others were "selected because of their knowledge and understand of their topics, their ability to facilitate a national discussion presenting a range of differing viewpoints, their technology skills … and their commitment to helping fellow educators improve their skills to foster student success." neA Vice president said it "an honor and a high responsibility" for those chosen to be part of the initial project. "i've been an educator for 31 years. i feel strongly that technology is an essential and needed tool in the classroom and i'm excited to be a part of the neA GpS network." Johnston Teacher Gets Grant the university of iowa awarded an fiRSt tech challenge, or ftc, SteM Scale- up Returning team grant to Johnston education Association member Mark Howsare. howsare is an industrial technology teacher at Johnston Middle School. the grant will help him guide efforts of the school's ftc team. ftc is a robotics program for student teams of up to 15 people. the team designs and builds a robot which it can enter into competitive events with other teams. find out more about iowa's ftc program by logging on to www.ftciowa.org Aplington Teacher Wins National Theater Award Aplington-parkersburg education Association member Brian Sammons is one of four teachers in the nation chosen for the broadway league's 2014 educator Apple Award. the award recognizes the efforts of teachers who work to expose their students to theater and promote the arts in their classrooms. his class began a pen pal relationship with actress hayley podschun and took his students to see her for a performance in des Moines. "we email, we Skype every once in a while," Sammons told Radio iowa. "the biggest thing i enjoy is incorporating it as much as i can into our reading, our social studies, our science and math and our writing." Designing The DEA davenport education Association member Anthony "Tony" Ryder designed the new logo for the davenport education Association. Ryder, an Adams elementary School art teacher, was presented with a $100 check for his effort in winning the logo contest. FIRST-CLASS MEMBERS Mark Howsare Marlin Jeffers Brian Sammons Quickstat: Gender in the Classroom Females dominate teaching positions in Iowa's public school classrooms by more than a 3.5-to-1 ratio over males. Some studies have shown a correlation between teacher and student gender and academic achievement, specifically that female students do better with female teachers and male students do better with male teachers. But research also show that this gender difference takes a back seat to teacher expertise, i.e. the more competent the teacher is in his or her subject, the better students do, regardless of gender.