DURHAM ─ Kenan Fellow Tomika Altman-Lewis, a teacher at Burton Geowold Magnet IB-PYP Elementary School, is the recipient of numerous awards and grants.
Ms. Altman-Lewis is a 2012 Kenan Fellow. During her Fellowship, she with partnered Barbara Bissell, Section Chief of K-12 Mathematics, at the N.C. Department of Public Instruction on Common Core Curriculum design for math and science.
In the year since her formal Fellowship ended, Ms. Altman-Lewis has won numerous awards, detailed below:
• $600 NC Council of Teachers of Mathematics grant entitled "What’s so Common about Common Core Math?" The grant is for supplies including math manipulatives such as blocks and counting cubes, and books to integrate literacy into math lessons.
• $3,500 Burroughs Wellcome Fund PRISM grant entitled "Is Engineering Really Engineering?" for engineering kits and science materials.
• $3,000 from the Raytheon EiE Teacher Scholarship Program which includes $750 for professional development at the Boston Museum of Science and an engineering elementary kit. Recipients attend an EiE workshop and incorporate an EiE unit in their classrooms within a year of receiving the scholarship.
• The Creative Freedom Award, which celebrates and shares the creative and inspiring work of Triangle elementary teachers. This is the inaugural year for the award program.
• The Durham Soil and Water Conservation District 2013 Outstanding Teacher of the Year in Environmental Education in Durham County.
• The Education Blueprint Association's LEGO Literacy grant which will allow her to buy 30 LEGO StoryStarter sets, which are learning kits that provide students with hands-on learning activities. Through the grant she will also provide professional development for 10 teachers at her school.
• And finally, Ms. Altman-Lewis attended the Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy, which helps teachers deepen their understanding of mathematics and science content at grades 3-5 in the areas of data and statistics, measurement, and force and motion.