Latasha Hailey 

5th Grade Teacher
Blue Ridge Elementary
Raytown, Missouri
10 years in education
@LatashaRoland

Get to know Latasha Hailey

What do you love about working in education? What motivates you? 

The kids- to be honest. I am motivated by making sure the next generation has what I received when I as a kid. I wouldn’t have made it this far. I mean of course I had my parents, but I had some amazing teachers. It took me a round about way to get into education but when I think about it, it was those teachers who pushed me, who pushed me to do everything from applying to college, to putting me in programs to get to the next place. Everything they did helped me get to the next level. 

Why did you become a teacher? 

I didn’t start teaching until I was 26. I wanted to be a professor and I was in a graduate program getting a degree in history. As a TA a lot of students came to me and didn’t know how to write, or even take notes or follow a lecture.  I was surprised they had made it so far to college. In the middle of my third year when I had my masters I took a break and decided to go to a lever lower for teaching. I saw all these deficits and wanted to help out in that space.

What is your “Edulastic story”? 

This is my second year back in the class after two years working in an education non-profit. Our students took the state test on paper and pencil and when I got to MO, I learned the tests were on the computer. This was a whole new ball game. I went to a staff meeting and there was a teacher that was using Edulastic. During another instance I told my Principal that I wanted to get my students onto a computer. The Principal mentioned  Mastery Connect as an option but I thought Edulastic was better because of some of the features and content areas. I went from typing up my tests from paper, and then pulled some content from the content bank. I was asked to share with the other teachers because of all the data I’m able to pull out of it. Now I’m helping some of the different grades get on board. 

Describe your favorite Edulastic “aha” moment.

When I saw all the different question types you can ask. Kids are going to be told to answer multiple select and TEI questions in Missouri. When I saw I could actually do this on Edulastic I sat down and played around with it. The fact that I could see the data and see trends and not manually do the data as I usually do, was great. The questions are based on the proficiency bands or levels in Missouri. It’s everything I need to do packaged up in one place.  For me it was convenient. I went from doing state quizzes to tests and prepping for the state test.

What are your teaching/learning goals this year?

I want to be more data-driven with my students. I’d like to use more technology with the classroom. Last year I got a whiff of Edulastic, this year I want to shift into more- and do exit tickets on Edulastic. Students like to see their scores and see their own data.

Sum up your teaching philosophy in a few sentences! 

Getting kids to dive in and take risks. I teach from a very mature way – so I need them to try things out and find an entry point in everything they do.

Favorite motivational idea:

My favorite quote, probably since High School is  “Without struggle, there is no progress” – Fredrick Douglas.

Tips for new Edulastic users:

The biggest thing is simply to explore it! The biggest thing I told the third grade when I showed them last year was to start small- with an exit ticket.

I started big, that’s what I do. But I’d say start small- start with two questions. The system is very user friendly so create something small like exit tickets so you can see the the power of it. From there you can dig deeper and start building your own questions.

Teach kids how to use the questions (rather than just sending it to them) Also, my kids love seeing their scores. They will see it and want to do better. Or they’ll see it and want to re-take it. It’s very useful.

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