Three win Future Educator Awards
May 25, 2006
KOKOMO, Ind.—Recent Indiana University Kokomo graduates Ryan Carmichael of Bunker Hill, Elizabeth Stewart of Mulberry, and Tiffany Lancaster Salvagnini of Miami have received Outstanding Future Educators Awards from the Indiana Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
Division of Education faculty members nominated the three out of all fall 2005 and spring 2006 student teachers. The three award winners received the highest possible ratings on their student teaching evaluations, said Professor of Education Margo Sorgman, Ed.D. “Tiffany, Ryan, and Elizabeth all have passions for teaching, and have shown creativity in their required effective teaching projects.” For the projects, student teachers research and test approaches to teaching that can improve specific classroom outcomes, and be practically applied in the school studied.
Carmichael completed a Bachelor of Science in History/Political Science in May. He hopes to find a job teaching middle school social science and coaching athletics, while completing a master’s degree. He student taught seventh grade world culture and geography to Ty Spangler’s class at Western Middle School and American history at Western High School, with classroom teachers Chad Kemerly and Jill Newby.
Carmichael’s effective teacher project looked at ongoing assessment of the relationship of what students have learned with a teacher’s delivery and effectiveness of the material. “The model encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning by informing them of the ‘rules of the game,’ or the expected material to be learned,” Carmichael said.
Tiffany Salvagnini earned her B.S. in Education in May. She student taught this spring in Western Primary School’s transitional first grade with Bobbi Hillis and Judy Klingler and in Wallace Elementary’s fifth grade at Wallace Elementary with Matt York.
“I plan to continue my own education by earning my masters and later a doctorate,” she said. “It would be a pleasure to teach any grade. They all have their unique qualities that draw me.”
For her effective teaching project, Salvagnini collected data showing how students connect to the text of books they select to read, as opposed to assigned readings.
Elizabeth Stewart completed coursework for her B.S. in Education in December 2005, after student teaching Central Elementary School in Lebanon. She was placed in an all-day kindergarten class with Jeni Harrison and Karen Turner’s fourth grade. Stewart’s effective teaching project compared the scores of Central Fourth graders working with two different math curricula.
A 1996 graduate of Frankfort High School, Stewart returned there in January to teachstudents in the school’s Moderate, Severe and Profound Special Education programs. ‘I had been a para-educator in the classroom for the last three years while I was attending IU Kokomo. I have a passion for education, but especially the children that I work with now,” Stewart said. “I plan to eventually get a degree in Special Education. I am thrilled to finally have a classroom of my own.”
For more information on teacher education programs at Indiana University Kokomo, visit http://www.iuk.edu/education .
