Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education

"Valued Voices," a play written by Jean Rattigan-Rohr, associate professor in Elon's School of Education, will be featured in The Reader’s Theatre of New Works section of the 2011 National Black Theater Festival. The performance will be at 10 a.m., Aug. 2nd, in the Gaines Ballroom I – Embassy Suites Hotel, Winston Salem, N.C.

It’s no longer enough to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. Teachers must also emphasize “the four Cs” - critical thinking, creative problem solving, collaboration and communication, said Michelle Shearer, the 2011-12 National Teacher of the Year who addressed hundreds of North Carolina Teaching Fellows visiting Elon University for a weekend conference for college seniors throughout the state studying to be educators.

The youngest scholars spoke on the habits of highly effective teenagers, while those a year older focused on how the Elon Academy has changed their lives. The eldest of the Elon Academy students who presented to classmates, parents and educators on Friday evening? They read from the first drafts of admissions essays that will be used this fall to apply for college educations many once thought were out of reach.

Elon University will revise its Teaching Fellows program following recent action by the North Carolina General Assembly to phase out funding for the North Carolina Teaching Fellows program. The new Elon fellows program will recruit outstanding students nationally as well as those from North Carolina who want to pursue careers in education.

Bird Stasz, an associate professor of education, and Jeff Carpenter, an assistant professor of education, are providing technical support for pre-service teacher education in Tajikistan through the USAID/Quality Learning Project, administered by Creative Associates International, Inc. and funded by United States Agency for International Development.

Elon University welcomed dozens of Alamance County high school scholars to campus midday Monday with a special College Coffee for students enrolled in the Elon Academy, an intensive three-year college access and success program for talented local teenagers with financial need or no family history of attending college.

Charity Johansson, professor of physical therapy, and Mary Knight-McKenna, professor of education, presented a paper at the 9th International Transformative Learning Conference in Athens, Greece, on May 29.

It wasn’t enough for Victoria “Tory” Hill to simply show up for student teaching, give her lessons, and then go home. For the Spanish major who graduates Saturday from Elon University, time spent this spring at Eastern Guilford High School will benefit students for years because of her initiative to support Spanish speakers in a school with few resources to help them better learn their native language.

People with disabilities have made significant progress raising awareness of public policy issues that affect them in recent years, advances that students in an Elon University interdisciplinary course learned this spring as they researched the history, culture and psychology of a population that is often overlooked.

The School of Education offers its congratulations to seven teacher education secondary majors who recently received honors, awards and recognition from the College of Arts and Sciences.