Anne Marie Oestriecher named District Teacher of the Year 2009/2010

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Western Oaks Middle School English teacher Anne-Marie Oestriecher was named Putnam City Schools’ “Teacher of the Year” during the district’s annual celebration of teaching excellence on Feb. 22.

“This is an unbelievable honor. My colleagues at Western Oaks and across the district are phenomenal teachers, people who at every turn are caring and knowledgeable and do what’s right for students. I’m proud to work with them and represent them,” Oestriecher said in accepting the award. Anne-Marie Oestriecher

Oestriecher has been teaching for 14 years, all of them in Putnam City.

Her energetic, expert teaching skills benefit her students immensely, says Patricia Balenseifen, principal at Western Oaks.

“Anne-Marie is versatile and exceptional. She’s great at diagnosing problems when students are struggling. She’s willing to try new things. She motivates students who are difficult to motivate and can reach students who are difficult to reach. Her students think she’s fabulous, and they work hard because they want to please her. She can do it all,” Balenseifen says.

Oestriecher says her method of teaching is to guide students to discover knowledge and skills on their own.

“The information is theirs to learn, not mine to inform. I teach my students to question and to go deeper than what I can answer. I challenge them to teach me new things. My philosophy is that it’s time to throw out the traditional teacher-centered classroom and bring in the student-centered classroom. Students who participate in their education learn,” Oestriecher says.

Toward that end, Oestriecher’s classroom is informal but focused. Often, desks are scattered in different directions rather than lined up in neat rows, evidence that students are collaborating to work on lessons.

Technology is interwoven in the classroom with the use of a SMART Board, laptops, digital cameras and projectors. Not only do students work with the SMART Board lessons that Oestriecher creates, they learn to create their own SMART Board lessons so they teach additional material to classmates.

Oestriecher is also a believer in “differentiated instruction” – offering instruction that appeals to students with different learning styles. Once a week, Oestriecher’s students set up stations in the classroom that are designed to reinforce objectives they’ve worked on that week. For example, one station may be visual in nature, another one kinesthetic and another one musical. Some stations only use index cards, markers and tile letters while others use technology including a SMART Board, computer and listening center. As students rotate through the stations, different learning styles are tapped so that all students are engaged.

Even when students aren’t at stations, daily assignments often provide different kinds of experiences to enhance learning. When Oestriecher gives an assignment, she’s likely to provide three to six choices students may choose from to accomplish their task. Each option comes with Oestriecher’s expectations, so students know what they’re getting into in terms of mastering material.

“Since I've implemented this method, I have virtually no zeroes in the grade book. My students know that I believe they can master the objectives. Once they taste success, they are anxious to try other tasks for me,” Oestriecher says.

Oestriecher’s commitment to teaching and learning extends beyond her classroom at Western Oaks. She is a presence on committees that work to improve the school and enhance learning for students, serving on the school’s technology team, professional development committee, steering committee and site improvement committee. In addition, she is the school’s English department chairperson and textbook chairperson.

If that weren’t enough, she also is part of numerous districtwide groups that build and improve methods and tools to improve student learning. By serving on the district’s Literacy Task Force, the Reading Benchmark Committee and the English Mapping Committee, she helps guide the teaching and assessment in a core area of instruction.

Oestriecher also spends about four hours a week teaching students in the evening program of Putnam City Academy, the district’s alternative high school. She does so out of an enduring belief that helping students graduate from high school not only improves the lives of students, but also makes the community a better, stronger place.

Oestriecher finds other ways to make an impact in the wider community, too. Each year her students develop relationships with residents at a nearby facility for senior citizens, writing letters, conducting poetry readings and coordinating a holiday gift program. Students also write to soldiers serving overseas and coordinate care packages sent to soldiers.

Away from her life in Putnam City, Oestriecher volunteers to bag and box for a food bank, is a “Meals on Wheels” volunteer in the summers, and coordinates a book donation to put books into hands of low-income children. She also shops for and addresses Christmas cards for seniors at a nearby apartment complex.

In the end, teaching is where Oestriecher’s heart is – and her teacher’s heart has one unrelenting belief: all students can achieve.

“I believe in finding ways to help all students achieve success. My attitude is simple. If my students fail, I fail,” Oestriecher says.

Posted on Tue, February 23, 2010 by Caroline Gist filed under

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