NLP board member Liz Ramos wins California teaching award

NLP is thrilled to offer heartiest congratulations to Liz Ramos, a high school teacher and a member of our board of directors, on being named Outstanding Secondary Level Social Studies Teacher of the Year by the California Council for the Social Studies (CCSS).

The Constitutional Rights Foundation of Los Angeles nominated Liz for the award, which recognizes educators whose classroom teachings and professional practices reflect the goals and purposes of an exemplary social studies education.

Liz told NLP that she was honored to receive the award, adding: “I strive to create a classroom and lessons that engage students, open the world up to them, and help them to become informed and engaged citizens. This is such an amazing time to be teaching with technology and resources that allow teachers to take the students beyond the classroom walls.”

She has taught history and U.S. government at Alta Loma High School in Rancho Cucamonga, California, since 2005. She actively integrates technology into her curriculum, emphasizing media and digital literacy, to help her students to seek information and to demonstrate what they have learned.

Liz began using NLP’s Checkology® virtual classroom within weeks of its release in May 2016, first with students in summer school and then with her college prep and AP government classes in the fall. The platform, she says, has helped give all of her students “the tools to evaluate credible takes on a story, examine and understand the various purposes of news and media, and to be aware of bias and deceit by providing a framework to question the news and social media postings and be critical thinkers for reference in life moving forward.”

She was a member of NLP’s strategic plan steering committee and joined the NLP board in 2017. She has attended our NewsLitCamp® professional development events in Los Angeles and Chicago and led a workshop that featured Checkology (“Empowering Students to Navigate Today’s Challenging Media Landscape”) at the National Council for the Social Studies’ annual conference in 2017.

Liz and the other award winners will be honored on March 15 at an event during the CCSS annual conference in San Jose.