“I always knew that I wanted a career with kids; it’s my passion,” she said.

Seeing her family member deal with hardships like a lack of access to resources and a lack of understanding from other students and educators was a driving factor in her wanting to pursue an education major.

“Watching them go through their schooling experience really made me want to be with them throughout that process. It drove me to become that support person for somebody else,” said Ragals.

Ragals initially didn’t have Elon on her radar until she came to visit a friend and saw the campus firsthand. After her visit, she researched the Teaching Fellows program and came back for Fellows Weekend to tour and meet with a professor.

Her large high school left little room to truly connect with professors, so when she met with Lisa Buchanan, associate professor of education, for her Teaching Fellows interview, she felt an instant connection.

“That interview is what sealed the deal for me,” she said. “I knew that I was going to be able to explore my interests in education very deeply throughout the Fellows program. I knew Elon was the place for me.”

Ragals even remembers the exact moment when she received the final decision notification for her admission into the program.

“I remember driving with a friend, and I had her open the notification for me, and I found out I got in and started crying from joy,” Ragals said.

Her acceptance into the Teaching Fellows program opened the doors for her to become the best educator she strives to be. Through her Fellows cohort, she was able to take her passion for education to the next level through a DC trip, a study abroad program in New Zealand and her research conducted alongside her first Elon connection – Lisa Buchanan.

During her DC trip, she had the opportunity to take a course focused on politics in education.

“I’m a poverty and social justice minor and very interested in the politics of education, so the trip to DC was perfect for me. That solidified my interest and that I want to work in the DC area post-graduation,” said Ragals.

The travel and teaching exploration didn’t end there. In her spring semester of sophomore year, Ragals had the opportunity to study at the University of Otago in New Zealand. The culture and education system of New Zealand is primarily focused on fostering the students’ connection to the environment and indigenous culture.

“This focus made a lot of the students feel seen and made it an inclusive classroom community; it truly broadened my mindset of what inclusivity means in the classroom,” she explained.

The last month of her semester abroad, the group moved to the west and taught a kindergarten class in Queenstown, New Zealand. This class was collaborative, meaning there were two class sections joined as one to follow the lesson plans. Ragals noted the collaborative environment’s effects.

“When I am working in schools post-graduate, that’s the kind of energy I want to bring to meetings or any type of grade level work, and lesson planning, it should all be collaborative and a team effort, so I enjoyed that aspect of it,” she said. “The (study abroad) experiences completely changed me as a person. It challenged me a lot, but in the best way possible. I am a much better and much more resilient and flexible educator because of it.”

When asked what she is most proud of accomplishing, Ragals noted her comprehensive research done with Buchanan on the exploration of children’s literature on autism representation in picture books. Inspired by her loved one on the spectrum, Ragals used a book list of 25 children’s books and analyzed them based on the types of characters that were included in them and if they were portrayed to perpetuate stereotypes.

Her finalized research was presented at the North Carolina Reading State Conference and presented on SURF day. She earned a grant for her research as well, so she now has a stockpile of children’s literature for her future classroom.

“My research mentor gave me opportunities to push myself to do bigger things with my research, and that’s why I got to present it at a state conference,” Ragals said. “That was a very rewarding experience. I left it feeling very proud of myself, and I look back at it now and think I am a lot more capable than I thought I was. And I’m doing a lot more in my field than I ever thought that I could.”

She is excited to carry these abroad experiences and knowledge learned to her post-graduate adventures. Following graduation, Ragals hopes to make meaningful change in the education system.

“I want to teach for a while and then go into the field of politics in education, or more analysis or research around educational systems, including global perspectives around them. I think that’s really interesting and important work,” said Ragals.

And without her scholarship, Ragals says she doesn’t know who she’d be or where.

“I was able to do all these incredible things that are included in the program so that I can now graduate and be a very confident and self-sufficient educator wherever I end up,” she said. “Without this scholarship, I don’t know if I would’ve had enough confidence to stay in this field. It’s because of the donors that I can pursue something that I’m really passionate about with self-confidence.”

Twenty-one education programs from 15 states and the United Arab Emirates received CAEP’s 2023 Frank Murray Leadership Recognition for Continuous Improvement, named after the founding president of the Teacher Education Accreditation Council, a precursor to CAEP.

Recipients are selected from educator preparation providers granted accreditation by CAEP at the initial level from the previous year, who provided a full complement of evidence with demonstrated data trends and no stipulations or areas for improvement.

“There is no greater privilege than preparing young people for careers in education,” said Ann Bullock, the Dr. Jo Watts Williams Dean of Education at 51±¬ÁĎÍř. “Our faculty are second to none in their commitment to excellence. This award underscores ongoing efforts to ensure our teacher candidates excel as they follow their professional calling into school classrooms.”

CAEP was created by the consolidation of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and the TEAC. Murray was a key advocate for a single set of educator preparation standards to unify the profession and was instrumental in the merger.

“Frank Murray was passionate about education preparation, a prominent leader in our profession, and an advocate for evidence to improve education,” said Yuhang Rong, chair of the CAEP Board of Directors. “The providers that CAEP is recognizing are committed to continuous improvement and preparing their students to succeed in a diverse range of classrooms after they graduate. Murray Leadership Recognition recipients should be proud of their accomplishments.”

CAEP has accredited 541 educator preparation providers in 43 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.

“This fifth class to receive the Murray Recognition represents the diversity and innovation that comes with CAEP accreditation,” said CAEP President Christopher Koch. “These recipients reflect the innovation that CAEP affords in achieving excellence, by meeting the standards in a variety of ways, for the diverse populations they serve.”

2023 Frank Murray Recognition for Continuous Improvement

• Al Ain University—United Arab Emirates
• Alcorn State University—Mississippi
• 51±¬ÁĎÍř—North Carolina
• Florida Atlantic University
• Georgia Gwinnett College
• Grace College—Indiana
• Kent State University—Ohio
• Liberty University—Virginia
• Mississippi State University
• Missouri Western University
• North Carolina State University
• Northwest Nazarene University—Idaho
• Sam Houston State University—Texas
• Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
• Spelman College—Georgia
• The University of Mississippi
• University of South Carolina Beaufort
• Valley City State University—North Dakota
• Virginia Wesleyan University
• Western Oregon University
• Williams Baptist University—Arkansas

The 30-foot expansion was made possible by a $4,000 Community Partnership Initiative Grant from Elon’s Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Engagement. The CPI grant provides teams of faculty, students and community agencies financial support to launch collaborative projects like the expansion of the Eastlawn garden.

Associate Professor of Education Scott Morrison applied for the grant last spring to help grow the garden at the Burlington, North Carolina, elementary school. It’s a place that’s offered countless opportunities to impact local students.

“To put time and energy and love into kids in this community is so important,” Morrison said as he watched about 30 third-, fourth- and fifth-graders working in the garden.

The garden serves as an outdoor classroom for Eastlawn and Elon students. Morrison teaches a course in the fall and another in the spring during which Elon students spend most of their class time working in the Eastlawn garden.

In the fall, Morrison teaches EDU 431: Environmental Education, which meets every Tuesday and Thursday. On Tuesdays, students work side-by-side with Eastlawn’s Garden Club, a time both groups look forward to each week.

“It fills my heart up so much,” said Savannah Kile ’21, a biochemistry major. “As soon as we get here, the kids come up and give us the biggest hugs.”

The Elon course gives students a hands-on learning experience focused on the foundational principles, emerging trends and best practices in environmental education.

“It’s unbeatable,” said Andrew Kerr ’20, who majors in adventure-based learning. “This is truly the definition of learning at Elon. It feels very meaningful to me because I’m able to help out the kids in the surrounding areas.”

The garden began in 2017 as an idea from Eastlawn teachers Sarah Waddell and J’Taime Lyons. The two applied for a $20,000 Teacher Leadership Academy grant to open an edible school garden at Eastlawn, which is located in the heart of a food desert. For nearly three years, Eastlawn students have planted, grown and harvested fruits and vegetables like cabbage, Brussels sprouts, apples, blackberries and many other items in their garden. Waddell says the goal was not to just hand out food to students, but to teach them valuable lessons as they grew their own food.

“When you are actually getting to harvest things and have the students enjoy the strawberries, enjoy the kale, take home food, and their parents inquire about how to prepare it or tell you how much they enjoyed having it around the table, those moments are really powerful,” Waddell said.

Morrison first partnered with Eastlawn Elementary for his course around the time the school began its Garden Club. Along with lessons on experiential learning, Morrison saw another purpose for his courses: breaking down barriers between communities.

Eastlawn is a Title I school located minutes from downtown Burlington. Morrison says a key theme of his garden courses is shifting student perspectives about people and places that might seem different to them.

“It’s humbling,” he said. “It’s important to not just be secluded to Elon, but to also be in the community.”

On the final trip of the semester for the EDU 431 class, Elon and Eastlawn students worked to expand the garden, reinforcing wooden planters and planting 11 fruit trees, six blackberry bushes and three grapevines. Those tasks brought lessons in math, science and communication for both groups of students. But, for elementary education major Abbi Decker ’21, working with the young students in the garden is also a chance to apply what she’s learned in the classroom.

“The ability to have this experience one on one, doing the things I’m learning about in an actual experiential setting is really unique because you can learn all kinds of theory, but if you don’t get to actually practice with the kids, then you don’t really know how to teach it,” she said.

The learning opportunities aren’t only reserved for Elon students. Morrison also hosts workshops for Eastlawn teachers on how to incorporate the garden into their lessons.

Plans are currently in the works to expand the garden’s teaching potential. The school recently received a $5,000 Farm Credit grant to build a kitchen in the garden. Morrison hopes to also obtain funding to one day build a greenhouse on the property.

For Elon students like Lindsay Carter ’20, it’s exciting to know that the garden and its future upgrades will continue to enhance the learning experiences of Eastlawn and Elon students for years to come.

“Just being able to work with these kids and see the hope and joy in their eyes, it just means everything to see that future generations are caring and learning,” she said.

Katharine Fredricksen, a history major with minors in German studies and early childhood education, will work at two elementary schools in Vienna during the year.

In this program, known as USTA, English-speaking college graduates work as secondary school teaching assistants in cities and towns all over Austria. The TAs support teachers in English classrooms, providing conversation practice, language instruction, and a first-hand perspective on American culture.

Fredricksen notes that in addition to her minor in German Studies, which prepared her linguistically and culturally for life in a German-speaking country, she benefited most from the support of Elon faculty and staff. She names the Fellowships office under Professor Janet Myers as an essential part of her success, as well as the encouragement of German studies faculty such as Associate Professor Scott Windham.

After her year in Austria, Fredricksen is considering work with Holocaust studies or Holocaust education, a field that would unite her interests and skills in history, German studies and education.

Winter, M., & Hollingsworth, H. (2015). Promoting pretend play in the preschool years: Teacher practices and strategies for involving families. Childhood Education, 91(3), 182-189. doi: 10.1080/00094056.2015.1047309

And as devices like iPads change the way young people learn, identifying best practices for instilling a love of learning, especially in science and math, is more important than ever.

51±¬ÁĎÍř seniors Kaitlin Sands and Melissa Mischka have collaborated over the past year to observe how parents teach numeracy and scientific concepts to their 4- and 5-year-old children. Under the guidance of Professor Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler in the Department of Psychology, the duo found that parent questions can significantly affect learning, and that it’s more effective to ask those questions with activities that don’t involve online technology.

Their work is the first to be featured on E-net this week in a series of stories about research and creative projects on display at the 2015 Spring Undergraduate Research Forum.

“Parents of preschoolers typically focus more on reading and social skills than math and science,” said Sands, a psychology major from King, North Carolina. “Kids can understand math and science concepts. You just need to be there to guide it and nurture them along.”

The two students each conducted her own study: Sands wanted to know whether training parents improved a child’s predictive and mathematical reasoning, and if it made a difference whether activities took place in the physical environment or virtual contexts. Mishcka looked at similar considerations for scientific activities and whether parental use of open-ended questions sparked a child’s intellectual curiosity.

Sands and Mischka gave one group of parents specific prompts for the math and science activities. A second group of parents received a list of learning activities to complete but no specific instructions for leading conversations with children.

It was evident that prompts and training can make an impact.

“The biggest difference between the method we would describe to the one group of parents, and what the other parents would do on their own, is that the unprompted parents didn’t give their children as much time to think through answers,” Mischka said. “A lot of them said that not giving an answer was the most difficult thing.”

Yet allowing children time to think through ideas and responses actually sharpens their ability to make predictions and evaluate evidence.

Another important consideration is where that learning takes place, Sands added. Online activities through devices like an iPad aren’t as effective for parental guidance of math skills. They give parents less time and opportunity to solicit feedback from children and don’t provide natural breaks for reflection and analysis.

Still, there was one common factor underlying all of the activities. “No matter how much information or guidance you give your child,” Mischka said, “they won’t get as much out of something if they aren’t interested and internally motivated to learn it.”

In addition to their undergraduate research projects, Sands and Mischka were involved in the “Little Village” program of 51±¬ÁĎÍř’s “It Takes a Village” Project, where they helped young children from the community with emerging literacy development. Sands is a member of the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity, while Mischka previously served as president of the Future Educators Club and captained a flag football team.  

Sands, a psychology major with minors in neuroscience and early childhood education, moves to the Lone Star State this summer to begin graduate studies in developmental psychology at the University of Texas Dallas. Mishcka, an early childhood education major, recently accepted a position with the Aspirations School of Learning in Carlsbad, Calif., where she will work with toddlers using a Reggio Emilia learning approach.

CELEBRATE! Is 51±¬ÁĎÍř’s annual, weeklong celebration of student achievements in academics and the arts. For more information, visit .

The presentation, “The Men of Character Mentoring Program: A Catalyst for Change in the Era of Accountability, Standards, and Underachievement,” provided information on the development and implementation of mentoring programs to increase the academic and social success of black elementary males.

Knight-McKenna, M., & Hollingsworth, H. (2014, September 30). “They shattered every expectation I had”: From anxiety to a strengths-based perspective of diverse families. IARSLCE 2014, New Orleans, LA.

By Kim Walker

As a first-generation college student, Ciera Martinez ’15 fully understands what a difference an education can make in the life of a child.

That’s why the early childhood education major and Spanish minor is ready to make change happen. Passionate about maximizing education opportunities for all children, Ciera hopes to eventually earn a master’s degree studying sociology and the politics of education. In the meantime, she is doing all she can to impact the community around her.

During her junior year, she volunteered with the Boys & Girls Club of Alamance County and spent half of the following summer on campus working as a mentor for students in the Elon Academy, a college access program for area high school students. Ciera herself came to Elon after encouragement and assistance from mentors at her high school, and she relates to the Elon Academy scholars.

She relishes working with children, and these experiences are shaping her as well. “I want to be a positive source of energy in the kids’ lives. But, in reality, as much as I put a smile on their faces, they put an even bigger one on mine,” she says. “It’s just so rewarding.”

Ciera is vice president of Elon’s chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., and says it’s a wonderful match. She was drawn to the close connections she saw between the sorority’s members and that, coupled with their focus on service, encouraged her to pledge. Her sorority sisters are like family, the big sisters she longed for growing up.

What she likes most about Elon is the opportunities it offers, such as internships and study abroad, which she has embraced. “Being in college is a blessing for me, because, statistically speaking, I’m not supposed to be here,” she says. “I know how important it is to have a person who believes in you.”

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Sipala, N., & Hollingsworth, H. (2014, Spring). How to grow father involvement in inclusive classrooms. (a Publication of the North Carolina Association for the Education of Young Children), 46.