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Date: 7/9/2020
ENFIELD, CT – Enfield Public Schools announced that Michelle Burlingame has been selected as the 2020-21 Enfield Teacher of the Year. Burlingame is a math teacher at Enfield High School (EHS), and has been serving the Enfield students and community since 2008. Because of this distinction, she will be presented at the state level in the Connecticut Teacher of the Year process.
Burlingame was nominated by Holli Simmons, fellow educator in the English department at Enfield High School. Burlingame said that Simmons “was an excellent role model for me when I was a new teacher.”
According to the press release from the Office of the Superintendent, Burlingame “has been recognized for her commitment to her students and colleagues and is known for her willingness to help others and an enthusiasm she brings to all facets of her school and community. During the selection process, the Teacher of the Year Committee recognized her leadership during the transition to distance learning. The digital support she provided students and staff went above and beyond the scope of her position. She has facilitated professional development for staff along with hosting video tutorials to archive.”
The press release continues, “Additionally, her efforts in collaborating with IT on Microsoft Teams helped further facilitate the distance learning transition. In her department, Michelle provides materials, insights, and lessons for a newly offered Math Applications course where we see engagement increase yearly, as well as her work in the additional classes.”
“Furthermore, her involvement in supporting clubs and athletic programs in EHS and the community extend her level of commitment further, such as leading and coaching the Girls Lacrosse program in the Enfield Recreation league and as a beginning coach at EHS.”
Burlingame grew up outside of Syracuse, New York. She earned her undergraduate degree at the State University of New York in Cortland, and her Master’s degree at Post University. She now lives in Enfield with her husband, Matthew, and her two children, Eva and Brynn.
One of the reasons she was selected for this honor was due to her leadership during the transition to distance learning. When asked to elaborate on her contributions, she explained, “As soon as the schools closed in March, I knew we were going to be out for at least a few weeks and having a convenient and efficient method of connecting with students and distributing/collecting work would be vital. Email as a method of communicating/conversing is clunky and cluttered. Using email to distribute and collect work is messy and unreliable.
“So, when we realized that Microsoft Teams was the platform of choice for our district, several of us jumped in and started investigating how it worked so we could begin using the technology right away. After a week or so we started offering ‘help sessions’ using the video conferencing feature to show other teachers how to use Teams. By the time spring break hit, we realized that OneNote needed to be the ‘holder of the knowledge’ and Teams was best used as the ‘communication tool’ so we started holding help sessions for OneNote and other distance learning tools,” she shared.
Burlingame continued to explain that though the help sessions that were created were originally for their high school teachers, the sessions quickly were requested for use for the other schools in Enfield.
Another factor in her selection was her role in the creation of hands-on and real world math scenarios and problems for her students. She and her department coordinator, Jason LaMesa, created the Math Apps course in 2018. Students may elect to come up with their own “real world” math problems to solve, or select from the digital binders that are provided for the course. The problems can deal with construction, cooking, sports, or shopping, to name a few. The students then must apply a four-step process that requires them to understand the problem, plan a solution, do the math and look back to see if their plan worked and the solution is reasonable.
In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Burlingame was a co-founder of the Enfield Youth Lacrosse program in 2018, and coaches the EHS team now, although their season was curtailed this year due to COVID-19.
The next step for Burlingame is to submit her information/application to the state level Teacher of the Year Committee, and to present a short speech to the school when classes resume in the fall.