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Award winners with Oshkosh Area School District Superintendent Stan Mack

Award winners with Oshkosh Area School District Superintendent Stan Mack

The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh College of Education and Human Services will recognize the outstanding contributions of two Oshkosh educators at the upcoming Wisconsin Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (WACTE) awards ceremony April 2.

Each teacher licensing institution in the state, in association with the WACTE, has the opportunity to select two recipients for educator awards each spring. This year, the College of Education and Human Services is recognizing two exceptional teachers from the Oshkosh Area School District.

The Early Career Educator Award  is presented to an outstanding educator within the first three years of his/her professional career. The recipient is selected based on any combination of the following: positive impact individual has on schools or communities, innovation in designing learning experiences and advocacy for students.

GriffithAlexandra Griffith ’14, will receive the Early Career Educator Award for 2017. Griffith teaches English at Oshkosh West High School.

An excerpt from Griffith’s nomination letter provides a brief testament to her accomplishments at this early stage of her career: “Alex’s top quality is her unwavering commitment to student learning.

As an English teacher, Griffith works to develop positive relationships with her students, uses highly effective instructional practices, uses assessment data to ensure that her instruction meets the individual needs of each of her students, and collaborates with other educators to ensure that her students get the support they need in all aspects of their lives. As a result of Griffith’s outstanding implementation of personalized learning, her classroom has become a model for the district.”

The Pre-Service Educator Mentor Award is presented to an outstanding educator who has demonstrated a sustained pattern of mentoring pre-service educators for at least five years. Attributes such as the ability to model professional responsibility, demonstrate evidentiary assessment and effective classroom management and the ability to nurture teacher candidates while developing their capacity to be leaders are considered.

IMG_LynnBLynn Bridwell, a 1981 UW Oshkosh alumna and music educator at Lakeside and Roosevelt elementary schools, is the recipient of the Pre-Service Educator Mentor Award. Bridwell is recognized for her long-standing mentoring contributions to music education candidates and passionate support of the profession at large. Her untiring support of our field experience program has played an integral part in launching many budding professionals into successful careers as music educators.

UW Oshkosh Associate Professor Ken Liske stated in his letter of nomination: “Lynn Bridwell is the sort of teacher who draws out the very best from those around her. She lifts up her students, both elementary and collegiate, to be successful no matter their strengths or weaknesses. The ability she has to engage her students in active music making sets an example that transfers quickly to her student teachers. She sets high expectations and ensures they have what they need to succeed. Most importantly, Lynn truly cares about children, the future of education, society, and the teaching profession.”

WACTE is a professional organization comprised of Wisconsin institutions that prepare students for initial teacher licensure. WACTE is committed to the education of career teachers whose work in classrooms in Wisconsin, the nation and the world will result in robust student learning. To that end, the organization facilitates deep consideration of issues related to teacher effectiveness and student learning and collaborates with organizations and agencies to promote research-based standards and policies for professional educator development.

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