Susan McLaughlin, 2017 Copper Black Award winner

For her work developing a successful teaching strategy to narrow, close, and even reverse historically pervasive achievement gaps among students from diverse backgrounds, we proudly awarded Susan McLaughlin with the Foundation's 2016 Copper Black Award.

Culturally Engaging Instruction, a model that emerged from McLaughlin’s 2012 dissertation, employs subtle cultural cues to improve student engagement. Field tested in her classroom and around her district, students learning under this method showed amazing results — anecdotal, qualitative and quantitative.

McLaughlin developed this successful teaching strategy to narrow, close, and even reverse historically pervasive achievement gaps among students from diverse backgrounds. McLaughlin is a member of Blue Grass Mensa.