The+Institute+Leaders


 * Cindy Kendall: Bio || Cindy Kendall: Photo ||

Cherice Montgomery holds a B.A. in Spanish, a M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction, and am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in [|Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy] with an emphasis in Learning, Technology, & Culture at [|Michigan State University]. My research interests include:


 * Arts-based education, creativity, and cognition
 * [|Design-based pedagogies and informal learning environments]
 * Digital rhetoric, composition, and visual thinking
 * Experiential learning
 * Language, literacy, and learning
 * [|Mentoring, leadership, and change]
 * Pedagogy of professional development
 * [|Social technologies as pedagogical tools]
 * [|21st Century literacies]

Formerly, I worked as a full time Instructional Facilitator, designing cross-curricular professional development and supporting faculty in a large, urban, public high school in learning to use emerging technologies as pedagogical tools. Additionally, I designed and facilitated a number of grant-funded, summer institutes at Columbia College, [|Iowa State University], and [|UCLA] with the goal of assisting world language teachers in exploring standards-based thematic curriculum development, effective instructional strategies, and sound pedagogical uses of emerging technologies. I also taught high school Spanish for 12 years at [|Southeast High School] in Wichita, KS, and Spanish courses for 4 years as an adjunct instructor at [|Butler County Community College] in Andover, KS. While teaching, I served as an Associate Editor for the //Journal of Critical Inquiry Into Curriculum & Instruction// and as a member of the [|New Visions in Foreign Language Education Task Force.]

While at Michigan State, I have been a research assistant with the [|Literacy Acquisition Research Center] on the [|Intern Video Archive Project], worked with a research team from the [|Language, Technology, and Culture Program] (now EPET) on a study of Michigan’s one-to-one laptop initiative, and served as a technical consultant to the Top-of-the-Mitt satellite of the Red Cedar Writing Project at North Central Michigan College in Petoskey, Michigan. I have also been a writing consultant for the [|MSU Writing Center], co-coordinated the [|Bright Ideas Conference], and facilitated the action research of teachers interested in digital writing through the Red Cedar Writing Project. I am currently instructing world language methods courses and serving as the Innovation with Technology in Education Consultants (iTecs) Coordinator in [|MSU’s College of Education].

My professional activities include frequent presentations, various publications and contract work as an independent consultant for a variety of publishers, universities, and school districts. Over the past 2 years, I have co-facilitated a number of Mentoring, Leadership, & Change workshops and summer institutes for K-16 Arabic, Chinese, & Hebrew teachers; FLES teachers; and leaders in world language education. I continue to serve as a member of the Advisory Board for the [|National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center] (NFLRC), and edit the NFLRC’s electronic newsletter—//[|The Alumni Connection]//. I have received several awards for excellence in teaching, including the [|Kansas Foreign Language Teacher of the Year Award], and was honored by [|SCOLA] in a television spot highlighting my contributions to foreign language education.

In my free time, I enjoy cooking, games, reading, photography, scrapbooking, traveling, and waterskiing.

Marcia Rosenbusch: Photo

Marcia Rosenbusch: Bio

1. One thing that you should know about my life is . ..
Cindy Kendall: Family is very important.

Cherice Montgomery: That I love what I do, that my faith guides my work, and that as a result of my desire to make a difference in the world, I have a tendency to overcommit myself. When I can't do things as well as I envision them or as efficiently as they need to be done, it bothers me a lot and sometimes interferes with my ability to do the work at all.

Marcia Rosenbusch:

2. One thing that I’d like to know about you is . ..
Cindy Kendall: How do you like to spend your free time?

Cherice Montgomery: What do you like to think about, why, and how do you like to do that thinking?

Marcia Rosenbusch:

3. Three ideas or experiences that have significantly influenced my philosophy of teaching and learning are . ..
Cindy Kendall: [|1) Cognitive Flexibility theory] ([|Rand Spiro)] Want to know more? Get a cup of coffee and read [|Cognitive Flexibility, Constructivism, and Hypertext: Random Access Instruction for Advanced Knowledge Acquistiion in Ill-Structured Domains (1991)] or search for "Rand Spiro" on [|Google Scholar]; 2) the [|Internet] substantially changes how interactions and information can be gathered, synthesized, and published - with [|Web 2.0] even more so; and 3) the [|National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center] at Iowa State University and the [|Michigan World Language Association (MIWLA)], where many fellow educators have served as resources, mentors, and friends over the past few years. Oh, and, I have to say, spending a year as a high school senior exchange student in Mexico through [|Rotary International] launched me into world language education.

Cherice Montgomery: I can reduce the answer to this question to a list of key concepts (see F below), but the truth is that they only provided me a way to name and articulate the products of various experiences I have had as a result of meaningful relationships with others, including my parents, my students, and several colleagues. In other words, relationships have influenced my philosophy of teaching and learning the most. For those of you who like details, the most pivotal experiences have been:

a) //Observing my parents// - Throughout my childhood, I had numerous opportunities to watch my parents (who are not teachers by trade) plan inservices and other leadership training experiences for adults, teach a variety of lessons to both children and adults at church, and discuss other teaching experiences over dinner (i.e., engineering courses, etc.). As a result of those experiences, I learned that stories and metaphors are powerful pedagogical tools, that visual aids and music support long-term retention, that involving students is critical, that there is no substitute for careful planning and organization, that emotions matter, that technologies can be used in fun ways for a wide variety of purposes that support teaching and learning, and that service is the foundation of true leadership.

b) //Working in a// [|large, urban, public high school] - My students and several key colleagues (Robin Anderson, Sarah Edwards, Carol Ford, Janie Leeth, Melissa Ross, Shannon Rooney, Denise Seguine, Mickey Stilson, Wade Parsons) taught me that learning has to start with who and where THEY are, that people's lives are never as simple as they look, that many teenagers have already lived through experiences that are much worse than those that the school is supposedly "preparing" them to survive, that 14-year-olds are capable of understanding more than most adults realize, that learning should be joy-filled, that misbehavior on the part of both students and teachers is a response to unmet needs, that when people fail to respond one should ask why at least 5 times, that responding to unmet needs can serve as a powerful source of inspiration for creativity, that people are more important than papers or policies, that understanding institutional memory and systemic constraints is the first step to initiating change, that mentoring really does matter, that it really doesn't matter how it "is," but rather, how it feels, that I don't hate math--just how it makes me feel, that what I teach isn't as important as who I am, and that I am way more orange than I typically care to admit! ;-)

c) //Summer institutes// at the [|National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC)] at Iowa State University and working on the [|New Visions in FL Education Project] - Moved me in the direction of standards-based, thematic teaching, supported me in the integration of children's literature and culturally authentic materials into my curriculum, opened my eyes to the possibilities of technology as a powerful pedagogical tool, nudged me to think of myself as a member of a network of professionals with an obligation to consider how my actions as an individual teacher affected the profession as a whole, provided me with access--to key ideas in the field, to experts, to resources, and to professional development experiences, and gave me multiple opportunities to observe how Marcia Rosenbusch patiently and masterfully cultivates leaders.

d) //Working with Cindy Kendall// - A constant and valued source of new information, useful tools, powerful insights and interpretations, helpful advice, and encouragement who has challenged my beliefs, stretched my thinking, dimensionalized my understanding, and supported my personal and professional growth in important ways through her willingness and ability to play in a wide variety of conceptual universes. She taught me that technology skills often equal access to other resources with a capital A, that social capital is useful in understanding the way systems function, that change is best leveraged by putting pressure on multiple parts of the system, that it is important to give colleagues the benefit of the doubt, that the cultural triangle can be used as a frame for understanding culture of any kind, and has clarified my thinking about a host of other things.

e) //[|Working with Tonya Huber],// especially on the //Journal of Critical Inquiry into Curriculum and Instruction -// She challenged many stereotypes I held regarding higher education, opened my eyes more fully to the power of mentoring, provided me the opportunity to collaborate with well known scholars from a variety of fields on meaningful tasks, created space, time, and a supportive community in which I could grapple with the implications that their ideas might have in my personal world, filled my life with with gifts from other cultures, taught me what cultural sensitivity really means, affirmed the importance of arts-based education, and embodied the idea that one person can create substantive and meaningful change within a system by cultivating personal relationships as one acts on professional commitments.

f) //Pursuing a PhD at [|Michigan State University]// - Has broadened and deepened my bag of conceptual tools by exposing me to scholars like Betty Achinstein (border politics), Shaaron Ainsworth ([|multiple representations]), Tom Bird (metacognitive meddling), [|Jeff Bloom] ([|chaos theory and complexity] as they relate to learning in K-12 environments), Paul Cobb ([|boundary objects]), Liping Ma ([|knowledge packages and concept knots]), [|Punya Mishra] ([|design-based learning], and its relationship to creativity, multiple representations, and [|technological pedagogical content knowledge]), [|Lynn Paine] (how theory and practice relate), [|Cheryl Rosaen] (concept maps, case-based learning, and engagement), [|Rand Spiro] ([|cognitive flexibility theory]), [|Janet Swenson] ([|digital rhetoric and writing], literacy), [|Suzanne Wilson] ([|hierarchical linear modeling]), David Wong ([|the nature of compelling experiences] and the importance of recontextualization), [|Yong Zhao] ([|the ecological perspective] and new technologies as tools for second language acquisition), as well as some of my other graduate student colleagues (Ann Lawrence, Anny Fritzen, Leigh Graves-Wolf, & Scott Schopieray).

Marcia Rosenbusch:

4. One way that my thinking has changed over the course of my career so far is . ..
Cindy Kendall:

Cherice Montgomery: A shift from thinking about teaching to thinking about learning, from learning to doing, from covering content to designing experiences that will immerse students in concepts, from seeking the "right answer" or the "best way" to exploring the possibilities, from simplifying content to complicating and connecting it, from safe predictability to surprise and uncertainty. . . the recognition that just because it works best today for a given group of students does not mean that will even be remotely true tomorrow.

Marcia Rosenbusch:

5. The primary reason I wanted to attend this institute was . ..
Cindy Kendall: To play with the ideas of how other perspectives may help me to see how complex ideas and concepts are related.

Cherice Montgomery: Aside from the fact that the NFLRC is simply a place that usually energizes me, I wanted to experiment with using design-based learning as a tool for integrating the ideas I've been playing with since the last Mentoring, Leadership, & Change Institute. I was also very interested to see how others would respond to and interact with those ideas.

Marcia Rosenbusch:

6. One of the ways that I think this institute will challenge me is . ..
Cindy Kendall: through conceptual challenge - making deep connections will require substantial thinking.

Cherice Montgomery: It forced me to synthesize a complex set of ideas, attempt to package them in an appealing way, and articulate them in a very short period of time to an audience of highly qualified foreign language educators who already possess a great deal of experience, expertise, and influence in the profession. (No pressure! ;-)

Marcia Rosenbusch:

7. One of my biggest pet peeves in working with others is . ..
Cindy Kendall: Not knowing "where I'm going" (what's my goal)

Cherice Montgomery: //Conflict// (I don't work well in tension-filled environments, especially when I feel that the negativity is directly related to me in some way), //interruptions// (I have a hard time maintaining my train of thought when they occur and having to retrace my steps in order to rebuild the momentum necessary for my thinking to continue to progress after an interruption is very frustrating and energy-draining for me), //noisy environments// (they make it hard for me to concentrate), //distractions// (especially when I'm feeling pressed by a deadline and those I'm working with can't stay focused on the task), and //lack of attention to detail// (little visual things that are out of place are particularly distracting for me and make it difficult for me to focus on content). Guess I don't play very well with others! :-(

Marcia Rosenbusch:

8. One thing that I hate to do when it comes to collaborating with others is . ..
Cindy Kendall:

Cherice Montgomery: Being responsible for logistics, leaving the formatting of written documents to others, doing all of the work because others aren't willing to invest in it, or being left with lots of loose ends and no direction.

Marcia Rosenbusch:

9. One thing that you should know about working with me is . ..
Cindy Kendall: I like animated conversations,

Cherice Montgomery: I care a lot and I invest deeply in the people and tasks to which I choose to devote my attention. (That also means that the personal cost of failure is very high when things don't work out.)

Marcia Rosenbusch:

10. I hope that you will be patient with . ..
Cindy Kendall:

Cherice Montgomery: My excessive use of words. (I talk/write in order to process and it sometimes takes me a while to get to the point.)

Marcia Rosenbusch:

11. When it comes to technology, I am not comfortable . ..
Cindy Kendall:

Cherice Montgomery: Having to "perform" in front of others when I'm not secure with the content/process. In other words, I don't mind "bumbling around," but I prefer not to do that in front of an audience.

Marcia Rosenbusch:

12. What I would like to learn about technology is . ..
Cindy Kendall: time to familiarize myself with the Apple OS and iLife 06.

Cherice Montgomery: More about the technical side of technology, more shortcuts, more about Macs.

Marcia Rosenbusch:

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