Corrie Campbell’s third graders become independent thinkers in her classroom thanks to her high expectations and masterful facilitation. Campbell teaches ELA and social studies at Green T. Lindon Elementary in Louisiana’s Lafayette Parish, where her students spend their days investigating, observing and searching for answers, working in small groups and using rubrics to offer suggestions to others. Social studies lessons include project-based learning, such as one unit where students decorate cereal boxes to illustrate their research on local and state festivals. When she taught science, projects about human characteristics, animal traits, magnetic forces and the environment included hands-on activities like designing and building bridges to prevent flooding. Campbell used a Tools for Schools grant to add lab safety equipment to her science classroom, where students created models to describe interactions of the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. At her previous school in New Iberia Parish, Campbell created a fourth grade writing challenge based on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Students examined characters’ reactions when their rights were threatened, then shared their work with peers for feedback. The writing unit served as an extended lead-up to the Newberry Award writing contest in fifth grade.
Campbell diligently analyzes students’ work and exit tickets to find new ways to reach each child. She is passionate about creating equitable learning environments and has served as a mentor teacher for ELA, social studies and math teachers. Lafayette Parish works with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, and Campbell often field tests instructional strategies in her classroom, helps plan and facilitate clusters, and models best practices within grade-level content. Campbell’s students take charge of their learning, leading classroom instruction with questioning and discussion. And they thrive in her care: Campbell’s students have seen double-digit improvements in proficiency in their areas of study. As examples, in 2020-21, her students topped the district in social studies, growing in proficiency from 67% to 94%. For 2021-22, her students grew in science proficiency from 52% to 71%. Her students’ ELA proficiency on the i-Ready Diagnostic grew from 46% to 63% from the beginning to middle of this year. Thanks in part to Campbell’s contributions, Lindon Elementary earned an A rating from the state.
Focused on teaching the whole child, Campbell lobbied for learning experiences beyond school walls, including field trips to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. At her previous school, she created a character enrichment program where students learned about Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” putting the principles into action as they mentored peers, tended the school garden and collected canned goods for a local food bank. Campbell keeps families well-informed about their children’s education, sending home study guidelines with guiding questions and vocabulary and holding regular parent involvement events to share students’ work. A leader for the entire school community, Campbell is always on hand to lend a listening ear, offer an instructional strategy or share an innovative idea.
Campbell earned a bachelor’s in English in 2008 at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Press release: Driving Excellence in English and Social Studies Earns Lafayette Parish Teacher Corrie Campbell a $25,000 Milken Educator Award
"I teach because I want to make a difference in the lives..." (read more)
2008 B.A., English, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
