Dec. 31, 2024
Candace Mazza's Classroom Adventures
Discover the transformative journey of Candace Mazza, a dedicated educator from Dodge County Middle School, as she shares her evolution from high school to middle school teaching. With 17 years of experience, Candice opens up about the rewarding moments that make teaching worthwhile, including heartfelt messages from former students who found success thanks to her guidance. She brings us into her world where perseverance meets passion, and where the challenges faced are just stepping stones to witnessing the impact she has on her students' lives.
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Three, two, one.
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Welcome to Spotlight for Success brought to you by American Book Company.
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We are here at the Georgia Educational Technology Conference with our special guest, Candice Massa in Dodge County Middle School.
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Hi, Hello.
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Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
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I work at the middle school.
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I teach eighth grade.
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I'm an English teacher.
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I'm also the yearbook advisor and the department chair.
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You wear a lot of hats.
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I do.
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Wow.
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So what brought you into working in the middle school?
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I first started off teaching about 17 years in high school and I taught.
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I think the lowest grade I taught in high school was 10th grade and I usually taught 11th and 12th grade, and I decided to change when my son went to sixth grade and give middle school a try, because I was just ready to try something different.
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Wow, that's.
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That's wonderful.
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So tell us a little bit about some of the things that you've experienced here.
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Like that you had some wow moment associated with your career.
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Some of my wow moments are some of the rough kids that you think you're not getting through to and they graduate especially when I talk seniors and they graduated.
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And then you get this message in your inbox or Facebook Messenger where they're thanking you for all you've done with them and you might have sent them to the principal's office they went to ISS but then they thank you because they feel like that made a difference in their life.
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So I've had some of those moments.
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That's amazing, that's a wow, that's a 180 on some students and that leads to success, which is something I think we all want to see.
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What are you hoping to get out of the conference now that you're here?
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I'm kind of hoping to get.
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I do yearbook, we do a lot of Canva, so I'm hoping that's going to help me with making the yearbook better.
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But also we're in a changing world where technology is everywhere and the kids that's.
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All they want to focus on is technology.
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So I just want to get with them and get their interest and teach them the best of my ability.
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Wonderful.
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Do you have anything else you'd like to share about your experiences that you'd like to share with the educational technology community?
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The kids really enjoy all the things that y'all bring here and I bring back to the classroom.
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Especially, they love if you can bring and gamify things at school and I've learned some of the new things here at this conference that I plan on taking, especially the short answer we just learned from the guy over there.
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It was kind of gamify and usually you have multiple choice and now I've learned you can do short answer.
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Oh wonderful, so just getting the tools here is very helpful to bring back.
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That's great.
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Well, thank you, Candice.
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Thank you so much for participating with us at Spotlight for Success by American Book Company.
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We hope you have a fantastic conference.
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It goes really well today.
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Thank you.
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