Meet Our USATestprep Brand Ambassadors - Part II

Who are USATestprep Brand Ambassadors? They are loyal enthusiasts, teachers and administrators eager to share the message about USATestprep's capabilities in the classroom and for state and national assessments.

Earlier this year, we put out the call to these power users, asking them to contact us with their background, their stories, and why they love USATestprep.

[Meet more of our ambassadors! Click here and here. Also, join us! If you're interested in being a Brand Ambassador with us, visit our Brand Ambassador page and fill out an application.]

Ambassador Carol Mickus

My husband and I live in a cabin in the woods in rural North Georgia. My husband is a retired aero-space engineer and I am enjoying my second career. My first was accounting and when my children grew up I made the transition to teaching middle school. I absolutely love middle school and the energy of my students.

My favorite classroom experiences do not actually occur in the classroom. The best experience is at home on a Sunday morning when my phone rings and it is a former student letting me know that they are doing well in school or that they received a scholarship. Receiving graduation invitations and hearing from them through FB or still seeing them posting on my school LMS is the best.

As an educator it is so important to keep a continuous process of teach, do, assess going in the classroom. As a math teacher, I find that my students work at many different levels and I really need to work hard to keep up with each of them. USATP allows my students to work at their own pace to learn and then show mastery of the standards through common assessments. I have more time to remediate and students do not get bored or held back once they have mastered the content being covered. PLC meetings require less time to disseminate data since UTP does this for us, allowing our time to be spent discussing results and planning. My journey as educator has certainly been enhanced by implementation of the USATP platform.

Ambassador Dotty Bailey

I’m a quiltmaker, crafter, and avid reader! My 6th graders think I’m a nerd but change their minds when they learn that I have two Pit Bulls and a German Shepherd. I’m the mom of one Navy veteran and one on active duty in the Air Force. I’m also the grandma of three teenaged boys! My goal is to retire to the Georgia Coast in the near future....

USATestprep allows my students to be as prepared as possible for Georgia Milestones! They love the challenge, seeing their grades improve, and earning the chance to play games. One student told me, “Ms. Bailey, I just KNOW I aced the Milestones today!” When I asked how he knew, he said, “I knew just what to do on the questions because USATestprep asks the questions in exactly the same way as Milestones, so I’ve had plenty of practice on all of the kinds of questions!”

Ambassador Jessica Gordon

I grew up in Festus, MO where I graduated from FHS. From there I earned my teaching degree from Jefferson College and UMSL, my Masters in Curriculum from William Woods, and in the next few months I will have my Ed.D in Curriculum & Instruction from Northcentral University. I live in Poplar Bluff with my husband, and have been an educator for almost a decade now.

Over the past two years I have used USATestprep for assessment, reinforcing skills, implementing targeted student interventions, benchmarking, and data-driven decision making. My students most enjoy playing learning games on USATestprep and using “Battle Royals” to review course content.

Ambassador Melissa Kennedy

I have a Bachelors Degree in Education, Masters Degree in Biological Science, and four years of teaching experience. I love teaching middle school science. I believe in keeping things simple, engaging, and always having a fun, positive attitude. My favorite thing about being in the classroom is the relationships I get to build with my students. Some of my hobbies include being outdoors, learning new technology, and spending lots of time with my husband and our two daughters (10 years and 8 years). I still live in the same South Carolina town, and on the same street, that I grew up in. One of my favorite quotes comes from one of my favorite movies, The Lion King.

"Oh, yes. The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it...or learn from it. "- Rafiki

I am so happy that I started using USATestprep in my classroom! The data, instructional variety, and curriculum are all efficient and effective. This is a tool that is easy for teachers to use, engages students, and helps students grow academically.

Ambassador Elizabeth McDonald

I have bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education from Clemson University, my masters in Education from Anderson’s University, and my Master’s in Educational Administration from the University of South Carolina. This fall I will begin my coursework to obtain my doctorate in Literacy, Language and Culture from Clemson University. I am the Social Studies Department Chair at my High school. I am married to an agriculture teacher and we have three beautiful children.

I love USATP! It is a part of my classroom culture in my US History, AP US History and AP Human Geography. My students thrive from the rigorous assessments I can assign them. Because of their exposure to rigorous questions on USATP, they perform well on standardized assessments. I wholeheartedly believe that USATP is a part of the success I see in my classroom.

Ambassador Corey Phillips

Hello! My name is Corey Phillips, from Ringgold, GA. I am married to a teacher as well and we are expecting a girl in September. We both taught in China for a year and just love experiencing new cultures and new places. I am going on my 7th year of teaching and have really enjoyed my current job, teaching gifted middle school social studies for the past three years and coaching high school boys basketball. Making those relationships with the kids and earning their trust through mutual respect and humor has allowed me to break barriers that wouldn’t have been broken without that teaching style. I look forward to the next few years growing, learning, and becoming a better teacher for my students.

The most honest thing I can say about USATestprep is that it has impacted my classroom more than any other program or website I’ve used in my six years of teaching. Being a fairly young teacher, I feel that we have a pretty good grasp of all the “new and improved” resources that are available for the classroom, but we have to be trusted from our administration through experiences and data proven results to get them to “buy in” to a recommendation. Two years ago I sat at my desk knowing that there had to be an option out there that I could trust to use in my classroom that reached three goals. The 3 things I was looking for was user friendly, data driven, and standard aligned. This program exceeded all expectations. It's so user friendly, I helped a coworker who had problems checking email get set up and started on her own. It's so data driven that you can pre-test, post-test, benchmark, and quickly get informal assessments. Better than any of this is the standard alignment. It breaks down the whole framework of the class by Unit, Standard, and Element and has built in activities, tests, games for each.

USATestprep really gives you anything you can need for a subject and leaves it up to the teacher for how they want to implement it into their own classroom. It completely helped me manage my own data driven classroom and improve my test scores better than they have ever been.