Educator Of The Month: Allison Morris

Just before schools closed for the holiday break, Benfield Elementary School received a gift in the form of a $4,718.05 grant for its STEM program.

Allison Morris, the school’s STEM teacher, applied for a Kickstarter grant through AFCEA of Central Maryland early in the school year. She believed that Benfield’s STEM program, only in its second year, would benefit from additional technology.

The last week of school before the winter holidays is inevitably a flurry of activity, and this year’s was even more so for Morris, who learned her proposal had earned her school a nearly $5,000 grant.

Before the final bell rang in December, an oversized check was presented to her in the school’s gymnasium.

“It was such a fun week!” she said.

Morris, a Towson University graduate and Severna Park native, has been a teacher for 16 years. She started her career in third and fourth grade classrooms before transitioning to STEM through the Anne Arundel County Public Schools Triple E - Enhancing Elementary Excellence - program.

“Allison consistently inspires curiosity and creativity in her STEM classroom. She is a high-energy teacher that easily gets students excited about learning,” said Missy Fuson, assistant principal at Benfield Elementary.

Morris admits she wasn’t particularly drawn to math and science as a student, and she wouldn’t have predicted she’d end up working with robots. However, as an educator, she found herself most passionate about those assignments that were project-based and student-led, key components of Triple E.

She also has a strong belief that STEM needs to be made accessible to all students to prepare them for an increasingly tech-dominant world.

“If we look at the direction our world is heading, so much is online, so much is on social media; we have big corporations that are doing negotiations and contracts across the world, and robotics and AI is in the center of all of this,” Morris explained. “So if that is what our future is going to be, then we need to prepare these students to have access to that.”

Additionally, Morris sees the need for an early introduction to STEM education to break through any preconceived notions that it’s too hard.

“It’s important for these kids to have STEM because they need to see that they can do it,” she said.

Morris excitedly shared her plans for the grant money: Bee-Bots, essentially robotic bumblebees, will provide an introduction to coding for students as young as kindergarten. Dash Robots will give intermediate students an opportunity to delve into more challenging coding – Morris already has a “Mission to Mars” project in mind for her fifth-graders. Access to 3D printers will offer students opportunities to elevate many of their creations in class.

This is the second grant Morris has earned for Benfield this school year. Earlier in the fall, she was awarded $880 from the 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant program.

For Morris, who grew up on the same street where she now works, the positive energy of the students and parents in the community fuels her own.

“It’s definitely been a wonderful experience coming here,” she said.