Join us for the Best Should Teach Lecture and Awards Ceremony

Join us in the UMC Glenn Miller Ballrooms on May 1, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. for the Best Should Teach Lecture and Awards Ceremony followed by Keynote Alyssa Hadley Dunn, Director of Teacher Education and Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, NEAG School of Education, University of Connecticut

Dr. Dunn, will deliver her talk on responding to violence in schools, “What to do when you don’t know what to do: Teaching for equity and justice on days after."

What do educators do in their classrooms the day after a tragic or traumatic event? How do they attend to their students’ needs while teaching for equity and justice? Alyssa Hadley Dunn, Director of Teacher Education and Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Connecticut Neag School of Education, has made this a focus of her work as a teacher and a scholar. In her book Teaching on Days After: Educating for Equity in the Wake of Injustice, Dunn examines examples of days after that teachers remember, including 9/11, elections, natural disasters, gun violence, police brutality, social uprisings, Supreme Court decisions, immigration policies, and more. She also shares examples of days after that K–12 and college-aged students remember, including what their teachers did and didn’t do and how they experienced these moments. Her talk will highlight equity and justice-focused pedagogical approaches that can be used to support current classroom teachers and to help preservice teachers think ahead to their future classrooms. Dunn’s talk will provide useful and thought-provoking guidance for educators and educational personnel in a variety of educational contexts at all levels who navigate these very difficult and all-too-frequent days after.

The Best Should Teach Initiative celebrates excellence in teaching at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. It supports the preparation of college and university faculty, as well as public school teachers, in their disciplinary fields. Best Should Teach Gold and Silver Awards are presented at the event each year. The Best Should Teach event and awards are co-funded by the Ira and Ineva Baldwin Fund in the CU Foundation and Brian Good's private Best Should Teach Fund, with additional support from the Center for Teaching & Learning, the School of Education, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Awardees:

2022

Melissa Braaten, School of Education
Nii Armah, Theatre & Dance
Sarah Avila, Economics
Laurie Gries, Media, Communication and Information
Ross Taylor, Journalism
Bethany Wilcox, Physics

Tara Kawalec, STEM Launch K-8, Adams 12
Vera Moreno-Hamm, Columbine Elementary School, Boulder Valley
Emily Fiebig, Northridge Elementary, St. Vrain

2021

Julie Andrew, School of Education
Amanda Carrico, Environmental Studies
Kira Hall, Linguistics 
Branden Steinmetz, Music
Jennifer Stratford, Psychology and Neuroscience
Nishant Upadhyay, Ethnic Studies

2020

Allison Atteberry, Assistant Professor, Research and Evaluation Methodology, School of Education
Carol Conzelman, Senior Instructor, Global Studies Residential Academic Program
Kristie Soares, Assistant Professor, Women and Gender Studies 
Deborah Palmer, Professor, Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy, School of Education