When Heather Russell was asked to be the STEAM lead at her school, she didn’t know what STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) was.
After doing her research, the Ecoff Elementary School teacher realized she’d been doing hands-on learning so she accepted the role. Once the position of STEAM resource teacher opened up, she jumped on it because hands-on learning is her passion.
Russell’s passion recently led to her being named the Virginia elementary school technology education teacher of the year by the Virginia Technology Engineering and Education Association.
“I feel like this is the way kids should learn: hands-on, working as teams, collaborating, using their creativity, thinking outside of the box,” Russell said. “Just stepping back and letting them be the leader of their own learning and having fun and learning with trial and error, finding out what works and what doesn’t, that’s what learning should be, and that’s why I’m so glad I get to do in this class.”
Russell has been teaching at Ecoff for nine years. She was at Beulah Elementary for one year before that. This her third year as the STEAM resource teacher.
Russell said she couldn’t have done it without her students, as they’re the ones who push her to come up with creative lessons and think outside of the box to come up with things that inspire them. She records their reactions when they have an “a-ha moment” and said their creativity amazes her.
“It’s mind-blowing what these kids can come up with and the detail, and the artistry in it is incredible,” Russell said. “I take photos of all the kids’ work because I think it should be on bulletin boards, it should be online so that people can see how much creativity these little kids have. It’s incredible to see.”
Russell received a $5,000 Classroom Innovation grant from the Chesterfield Education Foundation to help fund her dream of creating the first robotics competition for Chesterfield County elementary students.
The competition will take place in March at Clover Hill High. Every school that wants to participate can bring 16 kids, and there will be second through fifth grade students on the team. She hopes to eventually add kindergarten and first grade. Russell said she is reaching out to students from the VCU engineering department, UVA computer science department and local high school kids to be volunteers or judges.
A $500 EdTech grant that she recently received will fulfill her goal of supplying every school with one robot.
According to eduporium.com of Newton, Mass., “[Russell] is working hard to bring more coding and robotics opportunities to the students in the 39 elementary schools in her district, and we’re more than happy to be able to reward her hard work and excellent application!”
She plans to work on funding the second one so students will have two robots to compete with at the competition.
Russell’s students are excited about the robotics team, and they want to eventually learn how to build their own robot.
She said it is a joy to see how much kids who struggled in the beginning have succeeded.
Russell received her bachelor’s degree in language arts from the University of Mary Washington, and her teacher endorsement and a masters degree in curriculum and administration and gifted endorsement from the University of Richmond.
