SCENES FROM NCE

The Golden Touch

Golden Apple, the leading Illinois nonprofit committed to preparing, honoring and supporting great educators who advance educational opportunities for students, awarded four NLU alums with the prestigious Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching.

The Golden Apple Awards for Excellence in Teaching honor outstanding teachers for having lasting, positive effects on students’ lives and school communities. Teacher recipients demonstrate – in their teaching and results – significant, positive impact on their students’ growth and learning. Following a highly competitive process, the ten 2021 and 2022 teaching award recipients were selected from a record-setting 708 nominations of Pre-K-3rd grade teachers.

In 2021, Meghan Rice ’13, M.Ed. in Urban Education, received the honor. She is a Kindergarten teacher at Willard Elementary School in Evanston, Ill. She builds a classroom of respect and inclusion and looks for ways to expand her capacity as an educator to support and uplift the livelihood of the children and families that she serves. To ignite student interest, she shares a connection to bridge their previous learning or lived experiences. She is intentional in including multiple learning modalities to help support both the language acquisition and application of skills. She sees her students thrive when they know what they are doing and why they are doing it. Rice worked to ensure her school’s literacy curriculum was culturally responsive and relied on that framework to build a system to support both monolingual and bilingual K-2 teachers, especially with the shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, Rebecca White Perry ’11, M.Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction, was an honoree. Perry has always wanted to be a teacher. She was inspired by caring educators throughout her life. Now in her eleventh year teaching 8th grade science at Belvidere South Middle School in Illinois, Perry is making a difference in the lives of her students every day. According to Perry, NLU offered a positive experience that was full of practical applications that could immediately be utilized in the classroom to support students. Her advice to new teachers is to be kind to yourself and focus on the good in each student and each day. Fellow awardee Kelli Houghton ’05, M.Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction, has called Prairie Hill School District in Illinois home for 20 years. During her time at Willowbrook Middle School, where she teaches literature, she implemented The Literature Lounge, where students analyze and discuss literature in a unique coffee house style setting. Teaching continues to be a passion for Houghton and helping students make a real life connection to literature. While at NLU, she learned collaboration can be a powerful source for learning. Her cohort consisted of 25 educators and they met once a week to develop, research, and implement strategies in the classroom.

Robert Davis ’07, M.A.T. in Secondary Education, was surprised with the news that he joined the ranks of Golden Apple honorees this year. He teaches at George Westinghouse College Prep High School in Chicago.

Meghan Rice '13