Arlington Heights Teacher Wins Award for Dryden School

A teacher from Arlington Heights’ Dryden Elementary School won a prestigious award from McGraw-Hill Education for innovation in the area of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

McGraw-Hill Education awarded Tricia Fuglestad, an art teacher at the school, the STEMIE award, which comes with $5,000 for the school.

The award is part of McGraw-Hill’s Science, Technology, Engineering & Math Innovative Educator Awards, or STEMIE, which recognizes innovative educators in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Fuglestad was the second place winner in the competition for submitting the video “Rotoscope Animation on iPads.”

The video features her fifth grade students from last year - currently sixth graders at South Middle School - demonstrating the Rotoscope Animation. In all there were 100 students that helped create the video, she said.

"Their amazing art/technology project has given Dryden the largest class gift in our 60 year history," she said.

"Our whole staff and all our students will benefit from the $5000," Fuglestad said. "We are going to use it to help reach our goal of having an ipad in every classroom so that we can always have this tool available to students when the grade level set of iPads is somewhere else."

The first place winner in the competition was Lance Schwartz, an eighth-grade technology teacher from Selinsgrove, Pa., who won $15,000 for his classroom. Jim Emmert, a high school technology teacher from Pella, Iowa, won third place prize, and a prize of $2,500.

To enter, teachers had to submit a short video that demonstrated innovative teaching methods in the area of STEM.

Thirty finalists were chosen by teachers and guest judges, and were uploaded to the STEMIE site. Teachers could then review the videos, and learn from other teachers’ lessons. People could then vote on their top choice for the winning video.

Fuglestad said everyone pulled together to make Dryden's video a winner.

"This was a real community effort," Fuglestad said. "All of the Dryden staff helped get out the vote with the parents, friends, and extended family members."

The school also set up a community voting station where residents could cast their votes for the video during Dryden's 60th anniversary celebration.

A total of $25,000 was awarded to the three winners and five honorable mentions throughout the country.

For information, visit www.mheducation.com.