A new museum exhibit tracing the last 125 years of teacher preparation in the United States and in the NIU College of Education will make its debut during Homecoming. The exhibit, “A Worthy Calling: 125+ Years of Preparing Teachers,” was among eight
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 moreClinical supervisor Megan Gerken finds bright workarounds for COVID’s puzzles
Megan Gerken had Monday, March 16, circled on her calendar. That was the day the clinical supervisor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction expected to welcome representatives from Deans for Impact, who were coming to observe a pilot round of their
Read moreWilkins, Quinzio-Zafran co-edit guide offering advice, support to new teachers
Elizabeth A. Wilkins, coordinator, Graduate Career and Professional Development for the NIU Graduate School and professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Anna M. Quinzio-Zafran, an adjunct instructor in the department and 2015 alumna of the Ed.D. in Curriculum Leadership
Read moreTeacher-licensure candidates thrive, grow amid COVID-impacted clinicals
For future teachers, the professional semesters of their higher education provide the classroom immersion and real-life, hands-on experience that apply the icing to the cake. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, most schools simply aren’t operating as usual. Some are all face-to-face, some
Read moreCollege of Education maintains nearly perfect edTPA pass rates
When Sarah Paver began her student-teaching class last August, the graduate student in Physical Education quickly became concerned. “I was very nervous when the edTPA came up,” says Paver, who graduated in December. “A lot of my classmates had said that they
Read moreCoE’s Altus partnership blooms with El-Ed major Jamal Murphy
Jamal Murphy is not a typical NIU College of Education teacher-licensure candidate. Raised on the West Side of Chicago, Murphy encountered an eighth-grade teacher who told him he would drop out by his sophomore year. What? Not finish high school? “Once you
Read moreA look behind the College of Education’s edTPA numbers
Laura Tuma felt uneasy when she first heard about the edTPA, the new assessment she would need to pass before receiving teacher licensure in Illinois. “It was very intimidating at first. It was very scary not knowing what to expect,” says the
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