Education Department

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Mission & Purpose of the Education Department

Purposes: The following purposes that guide the institutional mission are tailored here to express the mission of the Education Division.

Creating a Curriculum: The curriculum for programs in the Education Division is designed by faculty to be:

  • ability-based and focused on student outcomes
  • developmental, leading through more and more complex experiences, to full professional practice
  • integrative, consciously building connections across frameworks and areas of study
  • focused on fostering leadership in the learning communities of practice in both informal and formal roles

Creating a Community of Learning: The development of school professionals and adult educators requires the Education Department  to create an environment that models the community of learning through:

  • respect for diverse backgrounds and perspectives
  • collaborative and supportive interaction
  • clear expectations
  • active and reflective practice of self in relation to community

Creating Ties to the Community: In support of its mission, faculty and staff in the Education Department develop partnerships with districts, schools, businesses, and community-based organizations to:

  • develop appropriate field experience and internship sites
  • assist the Education Division to understand and respond to current needs in diverse work settings
  • assist partners in work settings to understand and value the contributions of the Education Division

Creating Relationships with Higher Education: As colleagues with education professionals locally, regionally, and nationally, Alverno College faculty and staff are responsible to contribute to the development of education through:

  • actively contributing to professional organizations
  • engaging in Scholarship and the critique of scholarship
  • serving on task forces, planning groups etc., in formal and informal
  • leadership roles
  • sharing and building upon one another’s practice

The Education Department believes the future of effective teaching, learning, and assessment depending on educational professionals who are knowledgeable, committed to the success of each learner, and able and courageous enough to act on that commitment. Therefore, education programs prepare educational professionals with the knowledge, skills, and behaviors to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow, creating schools and other  organizations that are flexible and responsive to the challenges of the times.

Vision Statement (Graduate)

Graduate Education programs are professional focused educational experiences for individuals committed to advancing their careers and serving as leaders in their  professions, communities, and personal lives. Led by a diverse community of educators, these rigorous programs integrate theory and practice, extending the pedagogical principles into advanced applications. Graduate programs attract and engage diverse students committed to both academic and professional growth and to influence change in their communities. These programs implement innovative, competency-driven, outcome-focused learning, engaging students through active, experiential inquiry to achieve social and professional impact.

Program Review and State Approval for Licensure Programs

All education licensure programs are approved by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. To be approved as an Educator Preparation Program offering licensure endorsement, Education has aligned program outcomes to state and/or national standards frameworks, which inform the design of all required courses, their assignments, and the structures for feedback and assessment. All programs leading to licensure culminate in applied practicum experiences supervised by qualified educators and include an exit portfolio. 

Education Department Faculty

  • Melissa Bonds, Ph.D., Doctor of Education Program Director, melissa.bonds@alverno.edu
  • Nilda Cordova, Ed.D., DDEEP Success Coach, nilda.cordova@alverno.edu
  • Amanda Hanrahan, Ph.D., amanda.hanrahan@alverno.edu
  • Ronett Jacobs, Ed.D., ronett.jacobs@alverno.edu
  • KimJ Jacobson, Ed.D., Clinical Placement Director and Certifying Officer, kim.jacobson@alverno.edu
  • Mindy Kramer, Ed.D., Paraprofessional to Teacher Program Director, mindy.kramer@alverno.edu
  • Teri Marsicek, Ph.D., Advanced Licensure Programs Director, teri.marsicek@alverno.edu 
  • Desiree Pointer Mace, Ph.D., Education Department Chair, desiree.pointer-mace@alverno.edu
  • Andrea Skyberg, M.F.A., Art Education Program Director, andrea.skyberg@alverno.edu 
  • Thor Stolen, Ph.D., Initial Licensure in Special Education Program Director, thor.stolen@alverno.edu
  • Randa Suleiman, Ph.D., Initial Licensure in General Education Program Director, randa.suleiman@alverno.edu
  • Jessica Willenbrink, Ph.D., School Psychology Program Director, jessica.willenbrink@alverno.edu 
  • Mary Tews, Academic Administrative Assistant, mary.tews@alverno.edu 

Abilities for Teachers

  1. Conceptualization is the integration of content knowledge with educational frameworks and a broadly based understanding of the liberal arts to plan and implement instruction. Teachers use conceptualization skills to plan lessons and units, meeting both current and future learner needs. Among the conceptual challenges students face as a teachers are to planning activities meeting the needs of the individual.
  2. Diagnosis is relating observed behavior to relevant frameworks determining and implementing learning prescriptions. Diagnosis relates to the teacher’s ability to analyze and solve problems. Teachers need to be able to move flexibly between seeing a group of students as a group and seeing the group as a collection of individuals with varying characteristics, needs, and talents. Teachers must have a working knowledge of the appropriate developmental, pedagogical, and subject area frameworks with which to interpret the behavior of learners to determine how to structure learning appropriately.
  3. Coordination is managing resources effectively to support learning goals. Teachers must identify, allocate, organize, and manage resources related to the total learning environment. Such resource management involves time, space, materials, the teacher as a tool of learning, other educators, professional literature, and the institution as a learning environment.
  4. Communication is using verbal, nonverbal, and media modes of communication to establish the environment of the classroom and to structure and reinforce learning. Lesson presentation, room arrangement, motivation, and reinforcement are examples of communication within the classroom; parent conferences and professional presentations are examples outside the classroom.
  5. Integrative interaction is acting with professional values as a situational decision maker, adapting to the changing needs of the environment to develop students as learners. This ability requires a sensitivity to all students, manifested in a way where relationships are created between teachers and students and among the students in a class. This ability brings together all of the above. Teachers use the abilities involved in integrative interaction by guiding inter-student discussion, model learning by making explicit what you are doing, and encourage individual participation while effectively directing a group activity.

Developmental Model of Teacher Competence

In 1979, the Education Department, in collaboration with the Office of Research and Evaluation and selected to create a model of the generic abilities of educators. 

The Education Reconceptualization Group identified the broad competences of the educator, across grade levels and content areas and including educating in informal settings (e.g. as practiced by a nurse or manager, as well as by a classroom teacher). Because the Alverno notions of competences as developable abilities of the person contrasts with notions in much of the research of competences as discrete behaviors, the Group began with wide-ranging discussion probing their experiences as educators and with other educators. After four years of discussion and refining work, a developmental model of teacher competence was captured in five "maps" showing the aspects of each ability as it typically develops from beginning to developing to advanced performance. 

The conceptualization was used in the beginning teacher standards by the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) in the early 1990s. The INTASC standards, became the basis for development of the Wisconsin Teaching Standards in the late 1990s. The abilities have been reviewed and updated periodically by the Education Department, drawing upon the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards work, among other resources. 

Beginning Teacher expectations characterize expected performance of a teacher entering the field. Because the dynamic competences are further refined through experience and reflection on that experience, the expectations of the Developing Teacher characterize a stage of professional development usually demonstrated by teachers with several years of teaching experience. The expectations of the Experienced Professional Teacher are the mark of a master, demonstrating professional depth and development.

Undergraduate Education Majors:

Undergraduate Education Certificate:​

Adaptive Art Education (AAE.S.CERT) Certificate Requirements​

​Undergraduate Education Minors:

​Graduate Education Majors, Minors, Specializations, Licensure, & Certificates:

School Psychology Graduate and Certificate Programs:

​Doctorate Majors:

National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Accreditation/Wisconsin State approval:

School Psychology EDS Program is accredited by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) and has Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI).