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>> Hey, everyone. Sarah Brown Wessling here from the Council of Chief State School Officers' National Teacher of the Year Program and I'm excited to introduce Voices from the Classroom, the State Teacher of the Year Podcast. CCSSO's National Teacher of the Year Program provides a platform for exceptional educators to elevate issues that affect teachers and their students, expand their leadership roles and inform policy and practice. I was named National Teacher of the Year in 2010 and since then, I've been committed to sharing the stories and elevating the voices of the State Teachers of the Year. It is my hope that this podcast will give you insight into the incredible work they do. The 2021-2022 School Year has commenced and many educators have used their experiences over the last two years to reflect on how they can better serve students to ensure their overall success. In these new episodes, the 2021 State Teachers of the Year will share how they used the shift in learning environments as an opportunity to refine their approach to teaching so they can better support students and their varying needs. You can join the conversation on social media by using the hashtag, #ntoy21 or by visiting us online at ntoy.org, that's N-T-O-Y.org.

>> Hi, my name is Jasmine Estes. I am the Senior Communications Specialist at CCSSO. And today, we are speaking with Alisa Cooper de Uribe. Alisa, would you please mind introducing yourself and telling us what state you're from, where you teach and the subjects that you teach?

>> Ola. I'm Alisa Cooper de Uribe and I am the 2021 New Mexico State Teacher of the Year. I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico and I teach here in Albuquerque at New Mexico International School which is a K through 8 language immersion school. So, I teach Spanish immersion first grade and I teach 80% in the target language of Spanish.

>> Wow. Thank you for all you do and thank you for being here. So, we're going to get started with our interview today. Would you mind sharing one practice, strategy, or concept that you will keep for the 2021-2022 School Year? And then if you have a practice strategy or concept that you will let go of, for this school year?

>> I would love to share those. In terms of what I would like to keep, I've noticed that right away something that works and I will keep doing it probably forever is singing as much as I can. If there is something that I need the kids to really hear me say or if there's something that we need to do that might be a little bit mundane, or if there's something that I really would like for them to latch onto in terms of language, I'm singing it. And so, it's something that kind of just came up naturally as somewhat of a strategy, somewhat of a practice. But if for example, I've got a student who's across the room who might not hear me because they're immersed in what they're doing, then I start singing their name and the word for whoever in Spanish. We say fulanito so I would be like, "Fulanito, aqui." And if we're cleaning up then it's, "Limpiar, limpiar." For kids who forget to write their name and the date on a piece of paper, I even now hear them starting to sing the song, "Esnombre, nombre y fecha." So, this practice, I'm choosing just a melody infused into our daily things, very quotidian things that we're doing. That's a practice that I will definitely hold on to because it's fun for me. It alleviates some of the anxiety that sometimes teachers feel in the moment when we realize that things might not be going the way that we think that they are. But if I give literal voice and some melody to some of the things that I would like for them to hear, it automatically just brings me down a little bit more to ground me, and then it engages the kids. And I have noticed that it also really helps them with their language learning. Since most of them are learning in their second language, it gives them just something else cognitively to make those connections with the language. So, they start to sing but they also keep those words and assimilate them really deeply into their new language base. So, I'm going to keep singing.

>> I think you should. And that's great to hear that the students pick it up and start to do it themselves. That's pretty neat. Thank you for sharing that. How about something that you considered letting go of or that you already decided to let go of? Do you want to share a little bit about that?

>> Last year, when we were in different modalities of teaching, I had to be really intentional about my planning for the learning experiences of my students, especially given the limited stretches of time that we had together. And this year, because we have the luxury of being together again, I am letting go of a lot of that highly, highly structured planning for the learning experiences. And it's been really liberating to start letting go. And I am really happy to let go now that I've seen that my students when I ask them if there is anything that they would like to add to our learning experiences, any little shifts or tweaks or something that they would like to do to make it better for them, then we're rolling with it. And so, letting go of some of the really focused, intentional structure of our learning experiences, I'm letting go of that. And I've already seen that it has been so fun for all of us mutually. One of the things that we did last week was use junk that we had accumulated in the classroom, cardboard boxes, broken phone extensions, things like that. And I said, "Well, we're going to build a house of our dreams that meets our needs," because we had been studying that. And they took it to the next level as soon as one student -- I said, "What else could we do?" And he said, "Well, I think that we could turn this actually into a full community and we can use the carpet as a grid for designing the community with the roads." And then the kids started asking about how to space the distance between the houses and one decided, "Well, we're going to have trains," and another an airport. And so, they ended up expanding this not just to homes but to a community that would still meet their needs. And they together made the learning experience so much more than I had even intended in my structured planning. And so, letting go of this control that I have over what we're going to do with the learning experience because we do have some more flexibility of time. And just the in-person dynamic, I'm letting go of some of that structure and letting them run with it with their own ideas.

>> That is such a great story. I'm so happy you shared that and that you got to actually see it play out that way. And just like how students can expand their thinking if they're -- you know, if they have the flexibility and freedom to do so. That's a great story. Thanks for sharing that. Is there anything else that you wanted to share with us today or anything that sticks out particularly [inaudible], feel free to just add it if you want. If not --

>> It's justbeen such a pleasure to be able to interact with students who have spent one of their most formative years in education in such a different context and to receive them into first grade, and to see where students could be at after living through such an interesting time. And to see that while some of the things that they bring to the table are different than the cohorts of first graders I have had for the past 10 years, that especially this year, they are still bringing this magical view of the world and their innocence and their excitement about learning and their joy about being together and learning to interact with each other. That there are a lot of things that are the same in what I see with students this age. But there's something that's just especially sweet about having the opportunity to be with them again in the classroom and to see that they're using what they learned last year to make this year a really good one. And so, the magic is back. Even though it was there last year too, it's definitely a treat to be able to be with the kids again in the classroom.

>> Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing and thanks for all you do, Alisa. Those are great things to keep in mind. So thank you for taking the time today. We really appreciate it and we are excited to share these out.

>> Thank you, Jasmine. This was fun.

>>Thank you for listening to the latest series of Voices from the Classroom, the State Teacher of the Year Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the Council of Chief State School Officers' National Teacher of the Year Program. It's our honor to elevate the voices of educators across the country and provide them with a national platform to amplify their message and advocate on behalf of their students and colleagues. Please, share these lessons on social media with the hashtag, #ntoy21. That's hashtag N-T-O-Y-2-1. Let's keep the conversation going.