So you might be wondering who I am.  My name is Dr. Annette Durbin. Personally, I am a wife, mom, grandma, sister, friend and colleague. I enjoy family, travel, outdoors, craft, music, and game nights.  Professionally, I am a longtime educator, I have 30 plus years experience in early childhood and elementary education. 27 of those years I worked in the classroom - all grades PK- 6 and then moved into my current position as an English language instructional specialist.  Since 2005, I have been a National Board Certified Teacher and continue mentoring teachers working towards board certification. I have a master degree in educational leadership, K-12 principal certificate, and doctorate degree.  My doctorate focuses on administrative leadership specializing in teaching and learning which speaks to the practitioner educator I really am.  

Besides doing College of Education adjunct work for two universities, I'm also an Alaska state writing consortium teacher consultant where I've been providing literacy professional development since 2006 for teachers in my district and around my state. I’m an Alaska State Mentor and in 2019, I wrote a National Education Association 3-year grant, just over a million dollars, to fund a mentorship program in my district to support early career educators.  Additionally, I am an education consultant working with public, private, and homeschool educators helping them to achieve their professional goals and overcome instructional and behavioral challenges in their classroom.  I am also a digital course and resource creator, focusing on elementary educational content which brings us here together tonight. 

As you can see, I love education and helping public, private, and homeschool teachers be Blue Ribbon Teachers!!  This work certainly gets me excited everyday!!  

So that's a little bit about me. If you’d like to learn more about my work, I’d like to invite you to head over to my website: https://blueribbonteacher.com, check out some free resources, read a blog post, and share your comments.