WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. — Conversations go a long way in Marci Gould’s class at Highlands Elementary School in Winter Springs. The A+ Teacher encourages her students to talk it out during lessons, making it a great way to learn. 

“Discussion is amazing because it allows us to relate to one another and to connect to one another. So to me, our students are our young leaders, and so I need to hear what they’re thinking. So discussion is a huge part of what I do in my classroom,” she said.

Recently in Gould’s class, she was on the move encouraging students as they learned about idioms.

She said there is something special about 5th-grade level.

“I think I Iove 5th grade because they have sass. They’re walking a fine line between being a child and being a teenager. They are experiencing things with each other, like trying to figure out what their voice is,” she said.

She said classroom collaboration is key for her students and she wants them to make connections while learning together.

“And we have these heartfelt discussions over literature almost all the time because we find ourselves in these books, and we find ourselves experiencing the same things that the characters are experiencing,” Gould said.

She said her students are not the only ones learning either.

“They make me think every day, which is the reason why I love this age group," Gould said. Also, is that they teach me maybe sometimes more about myself and the way I conduct myself as a human being? It’s always evolving and changing, just like it is for them. I love that.

“The expectations are high, and if you raise those expectations, they will reach them. They will definitely reach them.”