St. Norbert College Teacher Education Program Announces WACTE Award Winners

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From St. Norbert College, March 3, 2016
by Erich Wegenke, erich.wegenke@snc.edu, 920-403-3089

St. Norbert College's teacher education program is proud to announce the winners of its 2016 WACTE awards. These awards are presented annually by each member institution of the Wisconsin Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (WACTE), to a successful early-career teacher and an exemplary mentor teacher who works with student-teachers. There will be a formal award presentation on March 13 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Madison, during the WACTE spring conference.

The Early Career Educator Award is presented to an outstanding educator within the first three years of her/his professional career. The award recognizes the recipient educator's positive impact on schools and communities, innovation in designing learning experiences, and advocacy for students.
St. Norbert College's 2016 Early Career Educator Award winner is Chelsea Marin. Marin, a 2014 St. Norbert graduate, is a first grade teacher at Dickenson Elementary in De Pere. In the words of her nominator, "Her classroom is organized, engaging, warm and a fun place to be. She is a team player. She has the teacher presence of a well-seasoned teacher and she is only in the field two years!"
The Pre-Service Educator Award is presented to an outstanding educator who has mentored pre-service educators for at least five years. The award recipient is selected based on a variety of attributes: the ability to model professional responsibility, evidentiary assessment, effective classroom management, the ability to mentor pre-service teacher candidates and develop their capacities for leadership, and the ability to nurture candidates as they face a wide range of issues.
St. Norbert College's 2016 Pre-service Educator Award is presented to Lauri Jo Schneider. Schneider, a longtime cooperating teacher for St. Norbert College, is a kindergarten teacher at Westwood Elementary School in the West De Pere School District. Her nominator commented that she "gives student-teachers freedom to try new approaches after they have had a reasonable amount of time to understand her procedures and have made connections with the students. Her classroom is really a community, where expectations are clear and practiced, even retaught if needed, and students feel valued."
Marin and Schneider were notified of their awards by Tynisha Meidl and Reid Riggle, co-chairs of St. Norbert College's teacher education program, who visited their classrooms to deliver the news in person.
More information on WACTE and the annual awards can be found at http://wiscteachereducation.org/.