They are the best of the best. As the winners of the 2018 F. Donald Tibbitts Distinguished Teacher Award, Dianna w88 online live casino of the College of
Education and Shannon Richard of the Orvis School of Nursing represent two entirely different academic disciplines.Yet there are important similarities, most notably the passion both Townsend and Richard feel for their students, and the craft of w88 online live casinoHere are their stories.
DIANNA w88 online live casino
w88 online live casino has always been a big part of Dianna Townsend's life.
Both of w88 online live casino parents, Kathy and Carl, started their careers as teachers. They're the type of people who teach, nurture and inspire naturally; over the years, they have taken care of 20 foster kids, in addition to their own children.
w88 online live casino's older sister, Jessica, has a Ph.D. from MIT in aeronautical engineering and is an associate dean at Olin College in Needham, Mass. w88 online live casino even considers her brother, Peter, who lives in Dublin, Ireland and has had a successful leadership career in the financial services field, a teacher as well, given his ability to "be a leader, a presenter, and an excellent communicator."
"Even when I was young, I've always felt like a teacher," w88 online live casino says. w88 online live casino was a high school English teacher upon graduation from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. An avid outdoors person who loves backcountry skiing and whitewater kayaking, w88 online live casino'd also been an outdoor counselor and instructor. Before that, w88 online live casino was always the neighborhood babysitter. "It's always been in my blood. This is where my heart is. I've always been a teacher in some capacity."
Although the support of her family (including her husband, Tyler, and son Wyatt, 7, and daughter Willow, 5) has been important, and helps to somewhat explain why she has chosen the path of being an educator, there was more at play earlier this month when Provost Kevin Carman, College of Education Dean Ken Coll, and several members of the college's literacy studies faculty and staff showed up in w88 online live casino's classroom to present her with the 2018 F. Donald Tibbitts Distinguished Teacher Award.
The award caught w88 online live casino, an associate professor of literacy studies who has been at the University since 2007, off-guard. A few moments earlier, she was so intent on getting her EDRL 451/651 class, "Reading and Writing in the Secondary School," class started that she didn't put two and two together as she walked by the presentation committee in the hallway just outside her classroom.
"Dianna, hurry up and get to your class," playfully called one of w88 online live casino's literacy studies colleagues, Foundation Professor Diane Barone. w88 online live casino waved and looked like it was any other day for her.
But once Carman announced in front of the class that w88 online live casino had won, the enormity of the moment seemed to hit.
"My heart is thumping right now," w88 online live casino said to her class. She paused, and flashed a heartfelt smile. "I just to want thank my students. We have such amazing students. You make us better teachers. There is no question about that. We keep showing up, and you keep doing the amazing work that makes what we do as teachers seem so worthwhile. Thank you for being such great students."
For an impromptu speech, w88 online live casino's words resonated. Several of her students looked like they were about to cry as she spoke to them.
Reflecting on the moment a few days later, w88 online live casino said it was more than her heart that was thumping. She said once Carman and the presentation group had exited her classroom, she and her class took about 10 minutes, simply to settle down and to talk about what had just happened.
"I had to sit down," w88 online live casino said. "I was reeling. My knees were shaking, non-stop."
The slow-down, sit-down moment to fully process what had just happened wasn't surprising for w88 online live casino, who speaks often, and passionately, about how education is a very personal journey, experienced in different ways and through different perspectives, by a whole host of different people.
Each class w88 online live casino teaches, w88 online live casino says, is an opportunity for a group of people to experience an "incredibly human, messy, and awesome thing, where you are in it together with each other."
Hers is a w88 online live casino style centered directly on her students: "I'm very focused on my students, on their own rich life journeys. I want to honor them and their experiences. It's a really dynamic dialogue you're having with them. I just love that part of my w88 online live casino - the constant back-and-forth that I have with my students."
Don't think for a second, though, that w88 online live casino's classes are powered by unstructured stream-of-consciousness.
Quite the opposite, actually.
"I have very clear objectives in place for each and every class," w88 online live casino said. "Every day, there are exit slips, and there is a lot of group discussion to find out, ‘Where are you in terms of our objectives?' I feel a real responsibility for my students' success. I want to know, with each class, that they're learning."
Even after several years at the University, w88 online live casino feels that she, too, is still learning. Her progression and growth as a teacher since she taught high school English (and Psychology) in Massachusetts in the early 2000s has been due in large part to her willingness to challenge herself and to tackle new responsibilities.
The first big jump occurred when w88 online live casino and her then-boyfriend (and now husband), Tyler, moved from Massachusetts to Laguna Beach, Calif. w88 online live casino wasn't certified to teach in California, so she became a special education instructor.
w88 online live casino pursued her doctoral degree at UC-Irvine. She found that the quantitative work involved in the pursuit of her doctorate was to her liking. Her scholarly and research endeavors today include language development of adolescent students, with specific attention to academic vocabulary. She examines both the unique academic language demands of the disciplines and the effective instructional strategies to help students understand and use academic language in and across disciplines.
"There was just something about looking systematically at issues in literacy - it was a perspective where you step back and do a careful investigation to find ways that might help guide this great complexity that we have in the classroom," she said. "Taking time to study the reading and learning patterns of, say, 300 kids, and applying the findings to w88 online live casino and learning strategies, is intellectually satisfying to me. I also know it's helped me become a better teacher."
Today, in addition to her classroom w88 online live casino prowess, Townsend is graduate program director for the Literacy Studies M.Ed. Program. The job also involves an online w88 online live casino component, which Townsend feels she is slowly, but surely, finding ways to connect with her online graduate students.
"I feel I'm building that effective tool kit that you need to be a successful instructor, now in an online environment," w88 online live casino said. "That said, I feel there are just so many ways I can still develop and grow."
w88 online live casino smiled when asked if she was the same teacher who was stood in front of a high school English class at Chapel Hill Chauncy Hall School in Waltham, Mass., back in 2000.
"I was a very typical new teacher," w88 online live casino said. "I think I had some good instincts, but I made some big mistakes. I've learned to check my biases and assumptions about my students. That's still one of the most important journeys all of us need to make, to learn how to confront our biases and try not to assume anything about how someone will make sense of new ideas.
"I've come to realize that we all benefit if we understand how all w88 online live casino bring really differnet life experiences to the classroom. I've realized masterful teachers can only come to that realization, and figure out how to use it to support their w88 online live casino, over years of experience. I'm also a lot more humble now than I was then.
"It doesn't take much in our line of work to be humbled."
Speaking of being humbled, that was what transpired as w88 online live casino and her class spent those 10 minutes together following the announcement of her award.
In the weeks previous, as members of the Tibbitts selection committee had come in to observe her class, Townsend hadn't let on that she was under consideration for the University's most prestigious w88 online live casino award. She didn't want her students to behave any differently with observers in the room, so she introduced the committee members simply as "guests."
Now, with w88 online live casino knees shaking, feeling a bit breathless, and having to sit down, Towsend and w88 online live casino students shared what it had all meant.
"You could see in their eyes, they were all sort of, ‘Whoa,'" w88 online live casino remembered. "I think I shed a tear or two with them. I was feeling overwhelmed."
The class had a major assignment due later on in the week. Her students had been giving it their all, all semester. w88 online live casino decided that everyone needed a break of some sort. "I told them, ‘We'll take another week'" for the major assignment.
"And then a few definitely started tearing up," w88 online live casino said, "and it felt like we all cried, together."
w88 online live casino added, "I couldn't do what I do without them. UNR students are awesome. I love our students."
SHANNON w88 online live casino
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( Shannon w88 online live casino, pictured above, middle, after receiving the news she had won the Tibbitts from Orvis Dean Patsy Ruchala.)
It might have been a first in the 45-year history w88 online live casino F. Donald Tibbitts Distinguished Teacher Award.
The party of people who were to present Shannon w88 online live casino, an assistant professor of nursing, with her award in her classroom in the Pennington Health Sciences Education Building had to wait outside while w88 online live casino administered a quiz to her Pathophysiology/Pharmacology class covering of all things, G.I. issues.
w88 online live casino was nice, but firm when she said to Orvis School of Nursing Dean Patsy Ruchala, Vice Provost Joe Cline and several other faculty and staff members, "We're take a quiz on G.I. issues. Can you please come back in 15 minutes?"
While the party waited outside, eventually one w88 online live casino early finishers w88 online live casino quiz, a young man named Greg, walked outside the classroom to stretch his legs.
He was asked about Richard's w88 online live casino style.
"She's the best," Greg said. "She has this way of making all of the material, and all of w88 online live casino classes, fun and interesting."
Susan Ervin, an assistant professor of nursing, one of w88 online live casino's mentors and the 2012 winner of the Tibbitts Award, said that w88 online live casino's ability to make classes fun and interesting wasn't some sort of fluke occurrence.
"She's just so creative," Ervin said. "She's innovative and creative. With every class, there is a strong focus on student engagement and active learning. Shannon will do Twitter polls in the middle of the class to see how well w88 online live casino students are learning. There is this continuous sense of energy and engagement in w88 online live casino classrooms."
Then Ervin, added: "Shannon has so much potential. I told w88 online live casino once, ‘You are going to be running this place one day.' We are so lucky to have w88 online live casino on the faculty at Orvis."
w88 online live casino's road to the University hasn't followed the typical academic sequence for most faculty: undergraduate study followed by graduate work followed by a fulltime faculty appointment.
And yet, to her w88 online live casino tell it, there has been a natural flow leading to where she is today.
"To me, there has been a natural progression," she said. "There has always been, first, a love of w88 online live casino and, as I've made the progression, a love of nursing."
Growing up in Chula Vista, near San Diego, Richard played sports, and in an early nod to what was to come in her nursing career, developed her own self-care to treat her sports-related injuries. She also taught swim courses, and loved seeing her students master the skills she was w88 online live casino them. When she graduated from high school, she wasn't quite sure what she would do next. Her mother encouraged her to do something productive, and told her to entertain the notion of joining the domestic AmeriCorps, which was founded in the early 1990s as a federally funded voluntary civil society program to help communities meet critical needs.
"I didn't know where to go, and my mother told me, ‘Go to the domestic AmeriCorps and figure it out,'" w88 online live casino said.
Very quickly, w88 online live casino found that the AmeriCorps ethos of helping others was exactly what she was looking for. An instinct for nursing began to surface not long after. When she and the other AmeriCorps volunteers would travel to tornado-ravaged regions of the country, it was w88 online live casino who would serve as the first aid provider.
"When there would be injuries, and people would say, ‘Shannon, we need you,' I'd be the one with the huge first aid pack," w88 online live casino said. "I got so much joy out of that experience."
When she finished her time with AmeriCorps, w88 online live casino then became an EMT. Not long after that, while living in Carson City with her husband, Victor, she enrolled in the two-year nursing program at Western Nevada College.
w88 online live casino became a fulltime emergency room nurse, and for several years felt the high-energy, fast-paced world of the ER was enough.
"But then it became routine," w88 online live casino said. "It was definitely important work. I enjoyed it, but I felt like I wasn't progressing the way I should. I asked myself, ‘What should I do to get out of this rut?'"
w88 online live casino concluded w88 online live casino had three choices: w88 online live casino could pursue a leadership position in the hospital, or w88 online live casino could go back to school to become either a nurse practitioner or a nurse educator.
"I'd always loved the feeling of being a teacher," she said. "I remembered some of my earlier experiences, with the after-school programs, with swim programs, and how much joy w88 online live casino gave me."
She has since earned her bachelor's and her master's degrees in nursing from Orvis. Her w88 online live casino load includes courses in "Care of Clients with Complex Health Problems," "Nursing Care of Individuals and Families," and "Pathophysiology/Pharmacology II," among others.
w88 online live casino said she's proud to be a "homegrown" faculty member of Orvis, with several faculty having been her teachers as she's earned her degrees.
"I've formed some wonderful relationships in the school because of that," w88 online live casino said. "I've always felt supported, and welcomed, by the people of Orvis."
Richard said her w88 online live casino style is informed by her own experiences, but perhaps just as importantly, by the study she's done of the different styles of learning in classrooms.
"I've done a lot of research on neuro-cognitive learning, and it often boils down to for every class, you only have about 10 or 15 minutes where the student is going to fully process the information you are presenting," w88 online live casino said. "So that's what I work with. Not just telling stories, but breaking up the information, and the class, into pieces. I'll present information, then give my students a little break, then we'll go to in-class activities, and then I get to go around the classroom and see how much of the knowledge they've learned.
"You have to make the content even more relevant and you have to be even more energetic in the present moment if you want your w88 online live casino to learn what they will need once they are out there, managing the care of their patients."
Even now, even as she has been recognized as 2018's Tibbitts Award winner, w88 online live casino still feels a need to progress, to learn more. To that end, she is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in nursing through a program at UNLV. In addition to her family responsibilities, which include not only her husband but the couple's 19-year-old son, Micah, w88 online live casino still finds time to work on weekends as an ER nurse.
It's a busy time for w88 online live casino, but it's also a time filled with excitement and fulfillment that she is pursuing w88 online live casino best self.
"The Ph.D. program is a big step, but I need to just take it one step at a time," she said. "I get very excited when I think about what a Ph.D. might mean - w88 online live casino in the graduate program after that, w88 online live casino a different kind of student, being in more of a peer-to-peer setting. That's exciting, and it feels, again, like it's part of my growth and progression. It's definitely why I feel it's necessary to ask more of myself, to reach the doctorate level."
w88 online live casino was then asked about the quiz she had administered a few days earlier, how it made her dean and the University provost wait in the hallway for a few minutes before they could present her with a well-deserved award.
"Oh boy," w88 online live casino said. "Well, I really push civility in my classrooms, particularly during quizzes. I didn't feel like I should interrupt something like that."
w88 online live casino smiled, and added, "I was so overwhelmed, though, once the dean and everyone else came back into the classroom. My heart was racing the whole time. I wasn't sure what was happening ... and then when I did ... it was such a neat outcome."
