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“Let’s spend a couple of minutes breaking the ice a bit,” says �պ����� Lecturer Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver, as the low hum of pre-class conversation in the Waterman 426 classroom settles down. It’s 4:30 on a Tuesday afternoon in November. Outside the classroom windows the sunlight is fading, but inside the two-dozen or so �պ����� education majors and nine guest students from Winooski High School are just getting started. For the Winooski students, a mixture of 9th and 11th graders, this may be their first time in a college class, but they’re already very familiar with the instructor. To them she’s Ms. MacLeod-Bluver, their teacher at Winooski High, whose innovative skill was recognized this fall when the Vermont Agency of Education named her Vermont Teacher of the Year for 2025.

“Caitlin’s ability to inspire, challenge, and uplift her students makes her an exceptional educator and a true leader in the field,” said Interim Secretary of Education Zoie Sanders, announcing the award. “We are proud to honor her, and we look forward to the impact she will continue to have on Vermont’s students and educators.”

That impact on future educators is what’s on display in Waterman 426. As the class – EDSC 2160, “Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment,” quiets down, MacLeod-Bluver and her co-instructor, Jenn Keller, review the schedule for the next hour. The �պ����� students have been working in groups to create project-based learning assessments for high school learners that can engage them in an active way. Through this approach, says MacLeod-Bluver, the targeted students will “not just be writing essays that get stored in a file cabinet, graded and moved on from, but an authentic piece of learning that high school students would care about.”

One �պ����� student group, for example, presented a “mock trial” project which would engage high schoolers in researching the details and principles behind five significant historical revolutions – the American or Russian Revolutions, for example, or the overthrow of the apartheid government of South Africa – and then, splitting up into prosecution and defense teams, putting those events on trial before a jury of their fellow students to render judgement on their moral justification.

The Winooski students functioned as evaluators, questioning the �պ����� presenters on details about their projects, and offering suggestions around clarity and structure. And the work impressed them. MacLeod-Bluver’s feedback from the Winooski students backed up the hands-on learning approach. “The kids were like ‘I liked the revolution one especially – I want to do things like that in class,’” she said.

�պ����� and Winooski High School students getting to know each other before the start of formal presentations.

And the �պ����� students found the interaction valuable “This was honestly really fun,” wrote one �պ����� student in a post-class assessment. “The [WHS] students were super-engaged, and I really appreciated their honest feedback…. Having a tangible audience helps us guide our work better and create something that is ultimately more student-centered.”

For MacLeod-Bluver, fostering these kinds of inventive approaches in students who will soon become the next generation of teachers is a driving force in her career. It began for her during her undergraduate years at Wesleyan University.

“I've always loved working with students. I have always loved working with young people. And then when I was a junior, I did a summer teaching program. And I truly just fell in love with teaching.” She later earned a master’s in education at Boston University and taught in the Boston Public Schools for eights years. In Boston, she worked with many students who were recent immigrants to the U.S., for whom English was a second or additional language. “And I felt like I needed more skills,” she says. “I did not know the science behind teaching adolescent learners how to read.” That led her to the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions reading specialist program. After a stint teaching in Juneau, Alaska, MacLeod-Bluver and her husband moved to Vermont, and she has taught in Winooski for the last six years.

MacLeod-Bluver's role as a combination high school teacher/�պ����� adjunct instructor is an outgrowth of the �պ����� Department of Education's broader plan to develop deeper partnerships with local Vermont schools, according to Katie Revelle, director of community collaboration for the College of Education and Social Services’ Department of Education. “I sit on the University Outreach Council, and I think this type of partnership represents the kind of work the council hopes to support,” says Revelle. The Outreach Council’s stated mission is to “expand access of traditionally marginalized and under-represented populations throughout the state of Vermont to higher education through intentional programming and outreach.”

After the class, MacLeod-Bluver took the nine Winooski students to a �պ����� dining hall for dinner with a group of recent WHS graduates who are current first-years at �պ�����. “Having dinner on a college campus was a new thing for them,” she said. And it gave them a chance to interact with people they’d known as fellow high-schoolers just a year ago and envision a possible future for themselves. “The conversations at dinner were around ‘do you see yourself here?’ and ‘what do you like about this?’ – it was just wonderful,” says MacLeod-Bluver.

Teaching high school all day, and a �պ����� class in the evening is a big effort, but one that MacLeod-Bluver clearly sees as a calling.

“I teach at �պ����� because I want better teachers everywhere,” she says. “I want better experiences for our students, and it doesn't matter how good I am in my four walls [at WHS] if kids are leaving and they're not having other great experiences everywhere. So I was really excited to teach at �պ�����. It was my first time working with aspiring teachers and really helping them. And it was so rewarding…. I truly realize how sacred this job is. That's why I've been doing it for so long.”