Christel Reaves is a wife, mother of two children, and the founder and CEO of Connected Class where she has built an online community with numerous resources for educators and students. In addition, Christel developed a platform to help educators communicate with families and provided them with over 150 Learning Link animated videos in literacy and math skills to support differentiated instruction and family engagement through exciting games, strategies, and activities.
Over the past 25 years, Mrs. Reaves has been a classroom teacher, district administrator, and consultant. She has taught Pre-K to 12th grade and developed educators in over 100 schools throughout the State of Florida with customized professional development. Christel has presented to thousands of public and nonpublic school educators from the national to local level.
Christel’s dedication to education has led to her being designated as the 2020 STEM Small Business Innovator of the Year by the Space Coast Chapter of Women in Defense. Christel has been named Teacher of the Year by her peers and nominated for the Dwyer Award for Teaching Excellence in Palm Beach County, Florida. Mrs. Reaves was also featured on Taking the Lead, a WPBF Channel 25 News segment about being an innovative teacher and inspiring students to achieve.
Christel obtained her master’s degree in Educational Leadership K–12 from Florida Atlantic University. Christel Reaves also holds a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York (S.U.N.Y) College at Cortland in Elementary Education and Early Secondary Biology Education.
- Parents don’t always know what is going on in the classroom?
- How can we unite the tie between parents and students?
- Game, strategy, or activity that teachers to do it in the classroom.
- Parents get it and then can access it without an email or password.
- Videos are easy to follow because they are animated.
- Teacher/parent relationship support.
- Even if the parent feels intimated by math, watching the video helps them feel confident.
- Connected class - customized PD
- instructional leadership institute
- Week in math, ELA, then determine goals they want to focus on.
- Connections to enable growth and learning.
- Henderson and MAP school family connection on student achievement
- Can’t get to academics because we are so busy dealing with behaviors.
- The ultimate cure for trauma is connection
- Many games and activities are about connecting directly with people 1:1.
- attention span is really short.
- How to overcome our perception of family engagement
- Monthly fact fluency challenge
- “Stop whining and just read with me.”
- Playing games with parents instead of giving homework.
- Rock Paper scissors, add subtract or multiply.
- Video embedded email - build meaningful 2-way communication.
- Reading in a flash
- Silly snapchat - changing filters while reading.
- Laugh and have fun reading with your kids.
- Learn more at ConnectedClass.com
Episode 16
