Mrs. Meghan Bing
Delran Intermediate School’s Teacher of the Year for 2015
Mrs. Bing has been a special education teacher at the Delran Intermediate School for the past six years. She is a resident of Delran. She has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Gettysburg College and a Master’s degree from Holy Family University. She is certified in both elementary and special education and has completed all of the course work toward a Reading Specialist Certification. One of Mrs. Bing’s educational passions is working with struggling readers. In order to help her in this initiative she has become trained in several different reading programs. These include Fundations, Project Read and the LIPS Program. She is also certified as a Level I Wilson Instructor. Other programs utilized by Mrs. Bing to meet the needs of her students are the Lucy Calkins Reading and Writing Program, Touch Math, Step Up to Writing, and Framing Your Thoughts. One of her goals is to encourage students to develop a love of reading and a love of books.
In addition to helping students, Mrs. Bing works to help new teachers. Mrs. Bing works with a colleague to help run the school’s Group Mentoring Program. They work to bring all of the school’s mentor and protégé teams together to work in a collaborative learning environment. They believe that this allows new teachers the opportunity to benefit from exposure to many different teaching styles and educators with multiple strengths. Mrs. Bing also works one-on-one with protégés to help them navigate their way as new teachers at DIS.
Mrs. Bing has won awards for participation and fundraising from the Autism Speaks Foundation. She has also volunteered her time at school activities like PTA fundraisers and Read Across America. Additionally, she has worked after school tutoring for several different educational programs and for small groups of her own students. She has also run workshops for parents.
Mrs. Bing has her students compose an invitation letter every year to a clever event in her classroom. Colleagues, student peers, school administrators and staff are invited to the “Reading Takes You Places Café.” It is complete with a stage and a microphone. Each student reads one of the writing pieces that they have crafted through the year. She celebrates her students’ accomplishments every day. This event is a more public forum giving the students an opportunity to perform and celebrate their own accomplishments.
Mrs. Bing’s goal is to help each student meet his or her potential. One of the ways that she helps to accomplish that is to provide flexible groupings and support programs designed to target instruction to individual student’s needs. In addition to working with the students, she co-ordinates with grade level peers to refine thematic units and integrate multiple content areas.
Mrs. Bing works every day in her classroom with a para-professional, Linda McHugh. They work together collaboratively to create a classroom in which the students can feel safe, cared about and supported in the learning environment.
Parents, peers and administrators have commented on Mrs. Bing’s patience and calmness. She is also described as kind and encouraging to her students and committed to the teaching profession. As stated by one of her student’s parents: “ Her commitment to the children she teaches is inspiring and recognizing Mrs. Bing could only inspire others to embrace a love of teaching… she is the model of what teachers should be.”