Executive Director: Chief Innovative Teaching and Learning Sciences Officer and High School Instructor
Dr. Michelle Zimmerman
Michelle Zimmerman received her Ph.D. in Learning Science and Human Development through University of Washington, College of Education. Her dissertation based on her original research was conducted at Amazing Grace from 2007-2011 and implemented back into the classroom across the entire school. The in-depth focus on cross-age mentoring and what happens when older students teach younger students was inspired by apprenticing under her mother, Gloria Zimmerman, since she was in 5th grade. She has personally experienced learning in education settings from private elementary school as a student at Amazing Grace starting in 1988, to being homeschooled in 5th grade and assisting in her mother’s Pre-Kindergarten classroom at Amazing Grace where she decided she wanted to become a teacher. During the time she apprenticed under Gloria Zimmerman, she experienced distance learning with a paper-and-pencil high school correspondence courses through the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She attended public school at Renton High School, and completed her Bachelors in Psychology at University of Washington a year and a half after officially graduating high school in the dual enrollment program though Hazen and Running Start at Bellevue College and Green River Community College with an A.A.S Direct Transfer Agreement and a focus on Visual Design and Early Childhood Education. Her M.Ed. is in Human Development and Cognition through the College of Education at University of Washington and intertwined with the Elementary Teacher Education Program. This work became the foundation for her doctoral research, merging knowledge in neuroscience, biology, psychology, anthropology, motivation theory, human movement through play and dance, as well as non-traditional methods of documentation, data collection and analysis with video, audio, and poetic transcription. These led to formulation of non-traditional assessments in the classroom.
Through her entire educational career, she has been working alongside her parents, David-Paul and Gloria Zimmerman to continue the legacy her grandmother began in the 1930s and developing the schools into what they are today. Dr. Michelle Zimmerman began apprenticing under Gloria Zimmerman in 1993, and officially began teaching in 2000 at Amazing Grace. With 18 years of classroom teaching experience, she has taught all the grades from 3-year-old preschool through 10th Grade in multi-level, cross-age mentoring, with a focus on middle and high school since 2009 and was the first to implement the 1:1 laptop program.
Her students have won awards in writing, videography, social justice, civics, art, design, computer science and poetry contests, have presented with her nationally at professional education technology conferences multiple times each year since 2012, co-authored with her in international publications, invited blog posts, and written content for her book: “Teaching AI: Exploring New Frontiers in Learning” Her students have been identified as National Merit Qualified as young as age 12 when taking practice SAT tests. She has won over 11 awards for teaching, including NCCE Outstanding Technology Educator of the Year in 2016, and awards in innovation, and STEM Excellence, and has been invited as a Featured Speaker for conferences including at STEM Summit for Scientific American and Macmillan at New York Academy of Sciences and New York Academy of Medicine, SXSWEdu UCLA and New York University among others, live global webinars, events and podcasts. She has served on the Professional Education Advisory Board for University of Washington College of Education since 2012, informing practice for their teacher education programs. She achieved Adjunct Faculty position at Concordia University Wisconsin in 2015.
She is a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert consecutively since 2014, Microsoft Surface Expert since 2015, a Microsoft Certified Educator, PBS Digital Innovator in 2016, selected for the Museum of Pop Culture Advisory Board in 2018, selected as a Delegate for the Global Educator Exchange Leadership Summit in Singapore in 2018. Dr. Michelle Zimmerman has established partnerships with Microsoft starting in 2012, presented her research to Satya Nadella and his executive team, worked with and informed educational technology design and established the partnerships that led to our schools being selected as Microsoft Showcase Schools. She has consulted educational transformation from research to practice and spoken with Ministers of education from more than 10 countries who have visited our schools. She has been selected as Microsoft MVP for three consecutive years for Global Impact, and established partnerships for our schools to become WE Schools, Global Goals for Sustainable Development and accepted as a TEALS Partner School. She conducted four years of research on gaming in the classroom and partnered with Valve Software to give her students early access and collaboration with developers before HTC Vive was released to the public and early access to HoloLens though a pilot with mixed reality in the classroom. Her work has been highlighted in news from the Seattle Times to Venture Beat, Renton Reporter to KOMO 4, King 5 and Kiro 7.
In the past two years, she has been learning about School Law, how to write policy and protocol, curriculum guides, teacher training, professional development, marketing, modern business models, international relations, social media, and developing the 10-year vision for our schools. She and Gloria Zimmerman work on the interior design of the schools and closely with Renee Asdit from ColorWhiz. She and her mother are also the producers and directors of the all school dance productions each year with 2019 celebrating the 20th Season. She is committed to continuing to encourage and support each faculty member to reach their full potential and was proud of having 11 teaching faculty present with her at Northwest Council for Computer Education in 2018, support and coaching for our faculty writing proposal and public speaking engagements and setting up opportunities for global collaborations and global events like Hack the Classroom and Back to School Live. She was thrilled to have and over 45 students present with her in the 2017-2018 school year alone.
Dr. Michelle Zimmerman made a promise that she would dedicate her life to children and that whatever she did in education would be to the glory of God. She has prayed for wisdom every step of the way and for the strength to persist when life feels too difficult to keep moving. Without Jesus, none of this would be possible. In Him she lives, and moves, and has her being. She learned from her mother: “If what you do can make a difference in one child’s life, is it worth it?” The answer is always: Yes.
You can follow her on Twitter: @mrzphd
