Excellence in Teaching is a professional development and award program that recognizes Florida’s most effective teachers and produces an interactive guide, Secrets of Successful Teaching, to share their traits, techniques and tools.
Through this initiative, the Foundation for Excellence in Education honors Florida’s greatest teachers, providing a cash award to as many as 100 teachers annually whose students made significant progress in reading and math based on the results of Florida’s annual standardized assessment, the FCAT. In 2008, the Foundation recognized the 85 greatest teachers in Florida.
Based on data provided by the Florida Department of Education and confirmed by school administrators, teachers were selected based on the degree of progress in reading or math demonstrated by their students on the FCAT from the 2006-2007 school year to the 2007-2008 school year. To be eligible for consideration for a 2008 Excel Award, teachers must have taught during the 2007-2008 school year, taught a reading or math course, taught students in fourth through tenth grade and taught students who took the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 FCAT.
The 2008 Excel Award winners were divided into ten groups, based on five categories in reading or math: those working with high achieving students, students performing below grade level, students learning the English Language, students with disabilities and all students.
During the first annual Celebration of Teaching in fall of 2008, Florida’s greatest teachers participated in focus groups hosted by the University of Florida’s Lastinger Center for Learning. The teachers answered questions like “How do you use data in the classroom?” “How do you motivate students?” “What is the best way to deal with disruptive students?” and more. Following the focus groups, the Lastinger Center team at the University of Florida compiled and analyzed the data from the teachers.
Secrets of Successful Teaching is a product of the experience and expertise shared by Florida’s greatest teachers and the research and analysis conducted by the
Foundation and the University of Florida’s Lastinger Center for Learning. This interactive guide includes 14 “secrets” and numerous quick tips divided into three core areas that are critical to success in the classroom, including A Relationship for Success, A Community of Learning and Techniques that Work. Related academic research can be found in each corresponding section.