From FHSU to Rural
arisma Vignery and Nicole Voss know that things will get better. Vignery, a native of Minneapolis, and Voss, who grew up in Pratt, are finishing their first year of teaching 8th and 9th-grade mathematics in rural Kansas schools. This year has brought some challenges but also some unexpected rewards. As they look to the teaching year ahead, they hope to build on the successes and embrace a few new teaching strategies.
“Your first semester teaching is not how it’s going to be forever,” said Voss, who completed her student teaching in the fall of 2022 and is now wrapping up her first semester as a full-time math teacher at Pratt Skyline High School. “This second semester has gotten easier, so it makes me hopeful for what it will look like in five years. It’s just so eye-opening, the change that a short time of teaching has made.”
As FHSU undergraduate students, Vignery and Voss are part of the Noyce Teacher Leader Program, a competitive scholarship program for students who have obtained at least junior-level status. The Noyce Teacher Leader Program prepares students for careers as outstanding science or math teachers serving high-needs districts.
Students selected for one of the seven $14,591 scholarships (renewable for a second year) receive specialized coursework, such as teaching using distance learning technologies, leadership, and professional development on issues facing high-needs schools. In addition to preparation for teaching, additional resources support undergraduate research experiences, travel to conferences, and support over the first three years of teaching to transition from student to a teacher-leader in science or mathematics in the employing district. Scholarship recipients must complete two years of teaching in a high-needs district for each year a scholarship is accepted.
Noyce alumni apply teaching strategies to first-year experience
For Voss, one of the key benefits of the Noyce program has been learning about the resources available to teachers.
“We just get so much more exposure (compared to other secondary education majors) to classrooms,” Voss said. “We’re in the classroom for a week observing in rural southwest Kansas, and we get so much exposure to education literature, in addition to attending conferences through the program.”
Vignery credits the book, “Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics: 14 Teaching Practices for Enhancing Learning,” which she learned about through the Noyce program, as beneficial in developing teaching strategies.
“The book studies were really helpful,” Vignery said. “I learned so much from reading the materials. It was nice to get me started, and I can continue that. I have a ton of books I haven’t even started reading.”
She continues to listen to teaching podcasts and explore the concepts outlined in “Building Thinking Classrooms.” These resources have shown her that fundamental changes to teaching mathematics could significantly change learning outcomes.
“We’ve been teaching kids how to be calculators,” Vignery said. “Instead, we should be encouraging them to be thinkers.”
Creating robust support systems for current and future science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teachers is central to the Noyce program. Those support systems have proven invaluable in retaining well-trained educators. For Vignery and Voss, that support system consists of FHSU faculty and other secondary education students.
“The Noyce program gave us friends,” Vignery said. “Before the Noyce program, I was just a math student. I didn’t really have a group.”
“Being a part of the program made me feel more a part of something.”Karisma Vignery, far left, at a league math competition in Scott City. Her Goodland students placed first overall for 7-8 graders.
Voss teaches an average of 13-14 students in her classes. She will complete her Praxis exams and is in the process of planning her September 2023 wedding.
Vignery, whose class size ranges between 14 and 21 students, completed her student teaching in Goodland in the spring of 2023. She will continue teaching there during the fall of 2023 and is excited to explore new projects and ideas this summer in preparation.
“I want to find activities and still learn the (required) materials but make it more fun and engaging for the students,” Vignery said.
Although the Noyce Program helped prepare the pair for their roles in the classroom, Vignery said she feels like just getting her feet wet in the classroom has been her most effective training method.
Both first-year teachers have faced many challenges in their classrooms, but a bright spot during the year has been the relationships they have formed with their students. Regardless of some behavioral issues in their classroom, Voss said she has “a lot of fun every day.” Voss plans on attending a classroom management conference, and they both will attend a Noyce conference during the summer of 2023 to aid in developing new classroom strategies.
Vignery and Voss point out that it takes a lot of “heart” to pursue a career in teaching math.
“It’s so public how difficult it is to teach math and science,” Voss said. “There has to be heart behind that, or you wouldn’t be going into it. Everything is so transparent now about the struggles and hardships around education. So, the people going into it now are very devoted.”
“If teaching were easy and we got paid what we deserve, there would be a lot of people who go into teaching for reasons other than their heart. That would be detrimental.”
Kansas rural school districts face unique circumstances such as geographic isolation, small populations, and scarce resources. The Noyce program works to prepare teachers to work within these parameters and improve the educational landscape. Vignery said that some of the additional issues she has seen in the Goodland school system have centered around chronic absenteeism, poverty, bullying, family struggles, and the lingering effects of classroom disruptions brought about by COVID-19.
At the heart of all those challenges, though, are the students.
“Deep down, they’re all good kids. They just need more love,” Vignery said.
Voss agreed, adding, “They need us.”
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“Deep down, they’re all good kids. They just need more love,” Vignery said. “They need us.”Nicole Voss, Emma Reif, and Karisma Vignery at the 2022 Noyce Summit in Washington, DC. Vignery’s students playing a math game they created