Meet Our Learning Luminary, Rachel Chastain!
What is Edge•U Badges?
Edge•U Badges is an instructional learning system designed by former teachers, for teachers, aimed at providing meaningful resources to directly impact student success. Edge•U Badges directly impacts student learning through microcredentials (badges), each crafted to support educators in all areas of technology-based learning. With over 290+ badges, the opportunities for expanding your PD are unlimited!
What are Learning Luminaries?
We are proud to highlight our valued partners of Edge•U Badges each month, celebrating their dedication and creativity in utilizing the badges they’ve earned within their instruction. Featured monthly, we are delighted to share the IMPACT of our badges, showcasing the positive outcomes for both educators and their students. By sharing their success stories, we aim to inspire others and foster a community where educators can find support, ideas, and JOY in their professional journey.
Rachel Chastain is a 3rd Grade Teacher at Princeton City Schools in Cincinnati, Ohio.
She expresses her enthusiastic perspective on educational technology and believes that Edge•U empowers her to remain actively involved in teaching by leveraging tools and strategies that ensure success in the classroom! Rachel strives to share her positive energy with students and colleagues! She states, “Earning Edge•U Badges is great because you get PD credit for a lot of things you are already doing and you also get to check out new tools. The AI tool badges and Rachel Porter’s (Edge•U Instructional Design Coach) AI presentations have been the most useful to me in my professional learning!
One of her favorite badges to implement in the classroom is NEARPOD! She has this to say about it, “I recently got the Nearpod Certified Educator badge. I’ve used Nearpod a lot in the past, so getting this badge was a great excuse to make some engaging Nearpods for math review. Students love to use the interactive features in Nearpod, and they get especially excited to play the Time to Climb game.”
Fun fact from Rachel: “I studied abroad in Rome for one semester in college!”
Rachel’s positivity is contagious! She loves to search for new technology tools and determine how they can enhance education and create student interest and impact.
Her one piece of advice to a new Edge•U participant would be to “Search for tech tools you are already using first to earn some easy badges. Then pick one badge at a time that is worth more points to spend more time learning about.”
Thank YOU, Rachel, for lighting the way for other educators with a spark of joy!