Edcite Teacher of the Month: Kathy Cary

We’re so immensely proud to present our first Edcite Teacher of the Month! From this point forward, Edcite will celebrate one outstanding member of our teacher community each month.  And there’s no better way to start this initiative than by recognizing Ms. Kathy Cary. Though we started our Beta program this past November and have witnessed around 5,000 teachers sign up, no one in our teaching community has been as active as Kathy Cary.  We’re excited to spotlight her below, and we hope that you can learn a few tips from Ms. Cary’s experiences!

About Kathy Cary:

Ms. Cary teaches the Marshfield Junior High School in Southwest Missouri, the school she herself attended when she was growing up. She is currently in her 10th year of teaching. She teaches ‘special services’ at her school, meaning that she teaches math, language arts, and reading to her middle school students.

How Did You Hear About Edcite?

Ms. Cary explained that she stumbled upon Edcite while looking for a website where teachers can add pictures to assignments and students could practice their own writing. She had been using a competitor’s website to achieve these tasks, but she felt that there weren’t as many capabilities with that site and she had experienced some technical issues. Kathy clicked on Edcite, signed up, and decided to try it for a week. “And I haven’t looked back,” says Kathy.

What Aspects of Edcite Make You Most ‘Edcited’?

Since Kathy has signed up for Edcite and began using it in her classroom, she has also started recommending it to her coworkers. She likes the ability to customize her own curriculum. For example, she can upload the pictures that she wants to use in an assignment, similar to what you can do with a handmade worksheet. She enjoys the various question types we offer — from short answer to multiple choice. And Kathy especially appreciates the ability to search in the questions library for questions that pertain to a specific standard. From there, she can chunk several questions together into an assignment and review one specific standard with her students. Going even further, Kathy explains, “I like the fact that you can reassign to just one student.” This is especially important for students with various needs in the classroom (special education or not, we all have that!).

How Do You Use Edcite In Your Classroom?

As Kathy says, “I use it every single day. Every day, the kids come in and take their laptops out, and get started.” Kathy creates her own ELA assignments, such as this assignment, which ask students to write observations in complete sentences, or this assignment, which asks questions about the novel Harris and Me. She also uses Edcite for her weekly vocabulary quizzes. As Kathy explains: “kids love it because they can see exactly which ones they missed. And then I can go back and explain why this is the answer. I love it!” And, if students need to do a make-up quiz, she will create a second version and send it out to individual students.

What Do You Think of Edcite’s Ability to Support the Common Core Standards?

According to Ms. Cary, she did not sign up for the site merely because of the Common Core. But she is excited to gain more exposure to the standards. As Kathy says, “I need to start familiarizing myself with the Common Core and practicing the standards with everything I do. I want to be a step ahead, not a step behind and play catch up.” When we asked Kathy how other teachers in her district feel about the Common Core standards, Kathy replied “they can do it, they just aren’t recognizing that they can do it. They’ve really been doing it for years!”

 Final Words of Wisdom:

Ms. Cary and I ended our conversation by talking about the joys of the summer. But Kathy has big plans in mind. As she says, “as the year comes to an end, I can’t wait to start preparing over the summer for next year. I will have time to sit and delve more into what Edcite has to offer and be able to provide a safe, online learning experience for my students.”