NLU Fall15Mag_2

NLU Alumni Magazine

Reunion Brings Together 1940 and 2015 By Nicholas A. Love

Is there an NCE way? That was the big question at the 2015 National College of Education reunion. The reunion took place at the Woman’s Club of Evanston, just north of Chicago. The luncheon, open to all alumni of NCE, included a panel discussion featuring a recent graduate, a graduating senior, an alumna and two NCE faculty members, also alumnae. The discussion, facilitated by Diane Salmon, Ph.D., another NCE faculty member, examined the spirit of NCE, with a focus on Adaptive Cycles of Teaching (ACT), a teacher preparation model that combines cloud-based and video observation technology with intensive learning- by-doing instructional experience.

After the NCE panel discussion, Diane Salmon, Ph.D., (left) and panel members posed for a quick picture. The panel included (from left) Sophie Degener, Ed.D., ‘90, Margaret Chudy ‘15, Maxine Weinman ‘15, Jennifer Gardner ‘03 and Debbie O’Connor, Ed.D., ‘11.

NCE’s ACT model allows for robust self-evaluation in addition to evaluation from peers and instructors, with the goal of keying in on the sorts of thinking that often go unnoticed in the process of learning to teach. Maxine Weinman ’15, B.A. in Elementary Education, shared her light-bulb moment as a student of NCE.

Doris Salmon reminisced about the joys of her experience at NCE, including dorm room pranks and private piano performances from the president of the college. But aside from hijinks and music performances, she identified the ways NCE prepared her for the profession of teaching. Most significant of all was that the duration of her four-year

“She started talking about National College of Education, and that’s where, I thought, I would learn to be a teacher of kindergarten.”

- Doris Salmon ‘40 Retired Kindergarten Teacher

Watch the Doris Salmon ‘40 interview at nl.edu/Reunion2015

“Part of what the ACT model taught me is that being talented at a subject does not mean it is easy to teach to others!” While the panel discussion reached forward into the NCE teacher preparation toolbox, the second feature of the day, a video interview with alumna Doris Salmon ’40, mother of Diane Salmon, reached much further back.

training was twice as long as her teaching peers who graduated from other institutions. So is there an NCE way? Whether it’s incorporating the latest in teaching technology or insisting on two more years of higher education before sending teachers into the classroom, the National College of Education at National Louis has consistently demonstrated a culture of raising the bar on teacher preparation.