2019 FALL LYCOMING COLLEGE MAGAZINE

Amy Rogers, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Education Rogers’ research areas include teacher leadership, teacher preparation, civic engagement, and local history. “At Lycoming, we emphasize relationships between teachers and students, and that the relationship piece of the classroom helps one manage a classroom. It’s important to get to know the students in order to better understand them, and to recognize that students need to have structure to succeed. ‘Always keep the three Rs — Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships’ in mind while in the classroom. Teachers do more than ‘just teach’ today — we have to look out for the whole self of the student, to be a catch-all for many issues that come with them daily to school. We also prepare Lycoming teacher candidates to be active citizens, knowledgeable, accepting, thoughtful, understanding, and kind, and to teach children to be kind. They need to expose children to experiences and ideas that are outside of what they are used to seeing, highlighting differences found in the classroom through names, books, and other examples. We challenge our student teachers to look at how they model their own behavior, which forces them to understand that we all have our differences but we are still the same — same struggles, same relationships. We also need to remember to be flexible and consistently open to change, considering what works and what doesn’t work. Only then can we be effective communicators and educators. Equally important, teachers need to learn how to take care of themselves so they can effectively take care of their students. If the teacher gets so inundated in the work, then they render themselves incapable of helping others. At Lycoming, we remind our students to participate in something they enjoy so they’ll want and be able to establish strong, healthy relationships with their students.” Courtney Dexter, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Education Dexter’s special areas of interest include teacher preparation, intervention and support for students with emotional and behavioral disorders and students at-risk, multi-tiered systems of support, and inclusion practices for students with disabilities. “Education is the profession that creates all other professions. It is difficult to discuss any pressing issue within a community without coming back to our educational structures and how we are preparing students. While we focus our program on evidence- based strategies and techniques in the areas of instruction, assessment, and behavior management, understanding the global impact of effective education systems is paramount. We are fiercely dedicated to creating thoughtful, qualified, accepting, and reflective practitioners. We have made significant progress within public education in removing barriers of access and opportunity for students with varying abilities, so it is imperative that we prepare our student teachers to meet the needs of a diverse group of students in the classroom. Educators must expose their students to a wide variety of experiences, ideas, and stories to build empathy, knowledge, understanding, and acceptance. We are committed to providing purposeful and quality programming for our students, including recent hosting of notable speakers in the areas of diversity in education and children of trauma. It’s all about inclusion and representation, and preparing educators to be effective models and facilitators.” (L to R) Hickoff-Cresko, Rogers, and Dexter 25 www.lycoming.edu