Five education students from 草莓社区 (EMU) were chosen to attend the 2021 Teachers of Promise Institute, which was held virtually on March 20. The annual event provides professional development, mentor discussions, and networking opportunities for 100 of the best and brightest pre-service teachers in Virginia.

EMU’s Teachers of Promise this year are:

• Sarah Ressler, elementary and special education, from Apple Creek, Ohio;
• Ruth Reimer-Berg, elementary education, from Salem, Ore.;
• Hannah Nichols, elementary education, from Rockingham, Va.;
• Megan Breidigan, secondary English education, from Douglassville, Pa.;
• Rachel Sauder, secondary mathematics education, Lyndhurst, Va.

The honorees 鈥渆xemplify strong potential for impacting students in the classroom, high academic standing, commitment to the teaching profession, and embody EMU鈥檚 teacher education mission to 鈥榯each boldly in a changing world through an ethic of care and critical reflection,鈥欌�� said program director and professor of education Cathy Smeltzer Erb. 鈥淭his is a delightful group of honorees. I am confident that these future teachers will positively influence the lives of each student in their classrooms as they create and advocate for just and equitable learning environments.鈥�

Professor Barbara Wheatley is the students’ teacher education faculty advisor. 

EMU鈥檚 education program values experiential learning, offering early practicum experiences that help candidates determine their professional path. Teacher candidates choose from 15 different licensure programs.

The teacher education program is National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accredited through the (CAEP).

Children are most welcome to attend, the organizers add!

Vi Dutcher, author of , and Esther Harder ’03, author of , will read from their newly released books. 

The readings will be followed by conversation with 

• Barbara Wheatley, professor of education at EMU; 
• her research collaborator Jennifer Whorrall Turner MA ’11 (education), an instructional coach with Staunton City Schools; 
• Charlotte Wenger Boudreau 鈥�11, literary agent; and 
• Maren Hange, illustrator of The Red Pop Beads. 

Members of the public can view the free livestream by or viewing on Facebook Live from (You do not need a Facebook account or page to access Facebook Live, nor does clicking on the link obligate you in any way to Facebook.) 

More on the panelists

is an agent for Prospect Agency. She represents authors and illustrators of children鈥檚 books, board books through young adult, but especially picture books, as well as select authors of adult nonfiction memoirs/biographies. 

Vi Dutcher is a professor of rhetoric and composition and is the director of the writing program and academic success center at EMU. She holds a PhD from Kent State University in English with a concentration Rhetoric & Composition. Prior to coming to EMU, she taught writing and women鈥檚 studies courses at Kent State University, Stark Campus. She has also taught at The University of Akron and Cuyahoga Community College. She enjoys linking her courses to community partnerships where students produce a deliverable product for a specified need in an organization. Her research interests are community literacy practices in general and Old Order Amish women鈥檚 literacy practices in particular.

is an illustrator, artist and pastor. 

is a 2003 graduate of EMU鈥檚 English Education program and holds an MFA from Chatham University鈥檚 Children鈥檚 Writing program. Esther has been a soccer coach, computer literacy specialist, assistant librarian for children鈥檚 programming, English department head, and currently serves as a managing editor for eDynamic Learning, an online curriculum development company. Her favorite responsibility at the moment is reading and exploring with her toddler son.

Jennifer Whorrall Turner completed her EdD in curriculum and instruction with a focus on reading education at the University of Virginia. She  is a middle school instructional coach, and has served as a literacy coach and reading specialist, English teacher, and Social Studies teacher over the past 16 years in various K-12 settings in Virginia.

Barbara Wheatley is an assistant professor in the teacher education program at EMU and a former elementary school teacher, reading specialist, and librarian with a passion for strengthening literacy in students. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on educational institutions across the country 鈥� with students, instructors, and families seemingly in limbo as they try to navigate public health precautions and an increased migration to virtual learning. At 草莓社区 (EMU), faculty have had to adapt their curricula to a semester that will begin and end online and accommodate in-person instruction in the middle. And fields that rely on practicum study have added challenges to face.

Some professors are finding this an exciting challenge.

“In many ways, this is an incredible time to be teaching students about public health and how medical and nursing research should influence practice,” said Professor Kate Clark. She’d normally be setting up clinical experiences with families and in other community health settings. Instead, a partnership with Harrisonburg City Public Schools will have student nurses assist with COVID-19 screening. The students will also perform a variety of nursing tasks at the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Free Clinic and at the Purdue poultry plant’s wellness center in Bridgewater.

These opportunities are the result of many years of relationship- and trust-building between the EMU nursing department and local agencies. Clark said she often hears from area healthcare providers “how ‘different’ our nursing students are 鈥� how professional, caring, broad-minded, culturally competent, et cetera. This is why they allow us to help in their work 鈥� because they trust our students to do this difficult work well and with great care and compassion.”

[Read more how spring 2020 nursing students gained unique experiences during the COVID-19 here and here.]

Future teachers also have a practicum-heavy course load. This semester, they’ll be learning through the same trial-by-fire as established educators, as they’re paired with local middle and high school teachers leading virtual classes for Harrisonburg City and Rockingham County Public Schools . 

“With local public schools providing primarily virtual instruction, our EMU students will have important opportunities to learn and apply new strategies in the context of online education,” said Professor Paul Yoder. “As a professor, I will similarly have opportunities to engage new technology and instructional platforms like VoiceThread as part of classes I am teaching.”

VoiceThread is a software platform that allows users to interact with video clips and voice and text comments for a multi-media forum experience. It’s one of the many new technologies emerging as prominent teaching tools in the era of COVID-19, and one that was introduced in a summer course for EMU faculty titled “For Our Students: Fall 2020.” Professor Daniel Showalter helped design the course along with professors Mark Sawin, Tara Kishbaugh, Barbara Wheatley, and Steve Cessna.

“The primary motivation for the course was to equip faculty to provide positive learning experiences during the challenges and unpredictability of the pandemic,” said Showalter.

The course included a four-week module in course development, safe classroom configurations, resources for effective online teaching, and examples of creative solutions EMU faculty are employing this semester 鈥� like this introduction video Sawin made for his History 101 and 102 classes 鈥� which students can attend in person, via Zoom, or just complete the coursework asynchronously.

Kishbaugh led the module on course development. She said one of the biggest challenges this semester is the “cognitive load” of having to re-do, or at least reevaluate, every element of a class to make sure it fits in the new normal of COVID-19.

“It feels like nothing is on auto-pilot. This is true in other areas of our lives as well which leaves all of us with less energy,” said Kishbaugh. 

She drew inspiration for this semester from a training she took years ago on institutional transformation work to improve the retention of students in STEM. The training, which came as part of a National Science Foundation grant, focused on “increasing our teaching efficacy and learning to be more responsive in our classrooms,” Kishbaugh explained. “The principles we focused on in this training were the ones that we highlighted this summer. Empathy and checking our assumptions are key to the rest of the pedagogical tools being effective.”

Showalter said this summer’s course participants came with a number of concerns and anxieties. How would they build relationships with their students in an online setting? What if they encounter technical difficulties? Will important conversations on racial justice, microaggressions, and disabilities be lost in the chaos of COVID-19? Showalter and his team tried to address each of these questions with digital resources, knowledgeable guest speakers, and small-group troubleshooting. 

At the end of the day, everything we do, teaching college classes included, is 鈥渨inging it鈥� this fall 鈥� but in EMU’s classrooms, it’s done with particular care. 

“The main idea here is that this semester will probably be stressful and there will be plenty of mistakes, but amidst it all, the goal is to center ourselves on the students’ needs and those relationships,” Showalter said.