Kollintzas, Laura, Faculty, 5th Grade
Ms. Laura Kollintzas graduated from Deree College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business and continued her studies in Great Britain, where she received a Postgraduate Certificate in Early Childhood Studies from Roehampton University and a Masters in Early Childhood Education from UCL-Institute of Education. Further, Ms. Kollintzas is a Certified Elementary Teacher for grades Pre-K to 6 from the state of Florida. She has taught elementary students for 14 years in pre-k, kindergarten, second grade, and fifth grade, allowing her to develop a solid understanding of the learning progressions. Ms. Kollintzas is also an ACS Athens graduate who attended from kindergarten to 12th grade.
Recently, Ms. Kollintzas received certification from Harvard Graduate School on Educating Global Citizens. Furthermore, she took two courses focused on teaching the United Nations Sustainability Goals in order to better understand how to integrate them into the curriculum and use them to further develop conscious citizens. Over the years, she has participated in a variety of seminars and conferences, such as the 2012 ECIS conference, centering on "The Changing Landscape in Early Childhood Education", and the 2016 ACS Colloquium, which involved the innovative approaches which ACS Athens and its faculty implement in order to holistically educate their students. Ms. Kollintzas has participated in various courses and workshops offered by the school, topics including "Creating Respectful and Productive Learning Communities", "Leaders and Learners", a training workshop led by Mrs. Erma Anderson focused on teaching math conceptually, a course offered by Stanford University dedicated to creating mathematical mindsets, training in the New Generation Science Standards by Dr. Abour Cherif, and a year of professional development in teaching literacy using the Lucy Calkins reading and writing curriculum as a tool. Moreover, she assisted in the further development and fine-tuning of the Dogs in Learning curriculum for second grade. During the pandemic, Ms. Kollintzas participated in numerous webinars to better understand online instruction and assessment for various subjects, as well as the needs of online learners. Finally, she has been conducting action research over the past few years, focusing on the development of conscious citizens by teaching the UN Global Goals through the literacy curriculum.
Since 2016, her passion for community service and the well-being of animals urged her to become the advisor of the ST.A.R.T. Club (Stray Animal Rescue Team), a club created initially by elementary school students who engage in a range of activities in order to raise awareness regarding stray animals as well as to raise funds for animal shelters in Greece. Finally, she is proud to have been a part of the ACS Athens initiative "Youth to Youth- Home Project", which involved developing curriculum and teaching English to unaccompanied refugee children on a voluntary basis.
Ms. Kollintzas is very passionate and enthusiastic about teaching and considers her role as an educator to be crucial and vital in creating future global ethical citizens. Her priority and goal as an educator are to promote and sustain an environment that nurtures happy, secure, and confident children and strives to motivate students to develop into lifelong learners with a strong sense of empathy for the world around them.
email: kollintzasl@acs.gr