Paul Wright believes in the affirming power of promoting social and emotional learning (SEL) through sport and other physical activities to position students on better paths toward success. Sure enough, it’s the major focus of the Physical Activity and Life Skills (PALS)
Read moreRockford Principal Prep program adds six Elgin U-46 candidates to new cohort
One year after the NIU College of Education launched an innovative program in principal preparation for the Rockford Public Schools, a second cohort has begun. This fall, the new group includes six aspiring administrators from Elgin School District U-46. Ryan Corcoran, Huff
Read moreTrailblazers: NIU, ECC salute first cohort of Elementary Ed graduates via PLEDGE
Fifteen newly minted teachers are ready to return to the school districts where they grew up and, thanks to a partnership between Elgin Community College and Northern Illinois University, never really left. The students completed their first two years at ECC and
Read moreNIU, Elgin Community College partner for Special Education transfer pathway
Another bachelor’s degree pathway is now available for Elgin-area students who want to become NIU College of Education-graduated teachers without traveling to DeKalb. NIU and Elgin Community College will launch a cohort this fall in Special Education, the second such collaboration and
Read moreHere We Grow: Elementary Education
One year after Sally Blake arrived to lead the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, she joined in the August 2019 “grand opening” celebration of a new partnership with Elgin Community College to offer NIU’s B.S.Ed. in Elementary Education there. And she’s still
Read moreEnseño en Español: DeKalb, Elgin enrolls teachers in new NIU course on biliteracy
During her years as a Cuban living in rural Galesburg, Ill., Mayra Daniel impressed on her family the need for fluency in her native tongue of Spanish. But that language was rare in this community of 35,000 in Knox County. “Few spoke
Read moreTeachers from Uruguay visit NIU, observe U.S. counterparts in DeKalb, Elgin schools
Valentina González and Analia Piantanida rarely see cultural diversity in the homogenous society of Uruguay, where both are English teachers in middle schools and high schools. Coming to Illinois as part of the NIU College of Education’s Uruguay Fulbright Teachers Program, however,
Read moreCOE Student Spotlight: Jeron Shelton
Hometown: Rockford, Ill. Program: Ph.D. Educational Psychology Status: Dissertating What inspired you to pursue this degree/career? I am in my 13th year as a seventh-grade English and social studies teacher at Abbott Middle School in Elgin U-46. Originally, I was teaching gifted
Read moreElgin U-46 partners with NIU to prepare new Special Ed teachers from within
With teachers in short supply throughout Illinois and across the United States, the responsibility of confronting that challenge is often left to school districts. Elgin U-46 has found an answer in the NIU College of Education. Serving nearly 40,000 students in 11
Read moreElementary Ed’s Elgin 2+2 off to good start
Esme wants “to give something back to my community, and what better way to do it than by educating the leaders of tomorrow.” Lisset loves “working and interacting with children. I have always looked up to my teachers as role models, and
Read moreSocial Justice Summer Camp 3.0 to foster growth via discomfort, ‘intellectual threat’
Jennie Hueber felt uncomfortable at NIU’s first Social Justice Summer Camp in 2017 – and that was a good thing. Hueber, the director of curriculum and instruction for DeKalb School District 428, already had begun her personal and professional journey to recognize,
Read moreSocial Justice Summer Camp 2.0 pushes educators to confront issues of diversity
Participants in last summer’s debut of NIU’s Social Justice Summer Camp gave James Cohen, Joseph Flynn and Michael Manderino a clear directive as they departed for home. Please, please do this again. And so they did, even if they had planned to
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