App State Elementary and Middle Grades Education

08/27/2026

Throwing back to a June summer camp at App State Hickory! At Hmong KUV Camp, a Hmong language and culture camp, kids learned from local cultural experts and had visits from a local farmer. The camp was organized and run by community member Elizabeth Thao, and our department supported the effort by helping her secure grant monies and through volunteering. 🌽 🧑‍🌾

08/24/2026

From Boone to Hickory, our Elementary and Middle Grades majors in the Reich College of Education have had an amazing first week of classes! 🍎📚
From red light games in seminar and connecting trains, to recording ideas about learning, creating geometry monsters, and even finding a “sole mate,” our preservice teachers are already learning, collaborating, creating, and building community. We can’t wait to see where this journey takes them! 💛

06/17/2026

Our Department of Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum has been named the 2026 recipient of the Hickory Development Award — one of the inaugural Hickory Champion Awards.

This recognition highlights the department’s leadership in launching two innovative programs at App State’s Hickory campus:
K–9 STEM Education Program
Part-time, night-time Elementary Education Program

Together, these programs are expanding access, supporting working educators, and strengthening the teacher pipeline across North Carolina.

We’re proud of the faculty and staff whose vision and dedication are making a lasting impact in our region.

Click the link in the comments to read more!

App State Elementary and Middle Grades Education

05/26/2026

Wrapping up Block 3 with so much pride as we celebrate and send off our Elementary Education majors into student teaching! 🎉

This group has put in an incredible amount of hard work this semester—showing up, growing, reflecting, and pushing themselves to become the teachers their future students deserve. Their dedication and commitment have been so evident every step of the way.

We are beyond proud of all they’ve accomplished and can’t wait to see the impact they will make in their classrooms. The next chapter starts now, and they are more than ready. 💛📚

05/13/2026

We're still thinking about the amazing Spring semester that we just wrapped up, and how our students were cracking the code on language proficiency, one egg at a time! 🥚✨

Our Block 2 future teachers celebrated the season with an Egg Hunt that was anything but ordinary. Each egg held an English Langugage Learner profile, a WIDA proficiency descriptor, or a scaffolding strategy, and it was up to our teacher candidates to find the matches and think deeply about how to support multilingual learners in their future classrooms. 🌍 From listening to writing, our students explored all four communication domains while having a little springtime fun. We could not be more proud of the thoughtfulness and heart they bring to this work every single day! 💛🖤

05/12/2026

Our very own, Dr. Lianne Jones, received the Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award! 👏 🏆

Celebrating Excellence in Education 🎉

Congratulations to our 2026 Reich College of Education Award recipients! Nine outstanding faculty and staff members — along with our Special Education Department of Labor Grant faculty — were recognized for their dedication to teaching, leadership, scholarship, service, and student success.

Dr. Lianne Jones: Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award
Dr. Betsy Rosenbalm ’01 ’05 ’08 ’14 ’22: Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award
Dr. Sandra Albert: Outstanding Part-time Faculty Award
Rhonda Russell: Outstanding Advocacy for Student Success Award
Dr. Herb Brown: Outstanding Leadership Award
Dr. Teressa Sumrall ’05 ’07: Outstanding Mentoring Award
Dr. Alecia Jackson: Outstanding Scholarship/Creative Achievement Award
Dr. Jill Weidknecht Van Horne: Outstanding Service Award
Alexis Manus: Outstanding Staff Award
Special Education Department of Labor Grant Faculty: Community of Practice Award

Click the link in the comments to read more!

05/11/2026

Watch out, world - there are some freshly graduated teachers on the loose! 🌎 🎓 We are so proud of our Mountaineer graduates and can't wait to see them make BIG impacts with students.

05/09/2026

So proud of our Block 2 Interns and the impacts they are making!

05/08/2026

We LOVE the partnerships we get to develop with local teachers!

Drs. Leslie Bradbury and Rachel Wilson have published an article in the journal Science Activities titled "From Curiosity to Comprehension: Supporting Diverse Learned in Academic Language Development" with two first grade teachers at Hardin Park School ❤️ 💛

Check it out here:

In this article, we describe a collaboration between two university science educators, a first grade teacher, and a special education teacher to modify a unit focused on carnivorous plants. Given t...

05/08/2026

Congrats to all of our graduates!

Congratulations to the Mountaineers graduating this spring — especially those graduating from the Reich College of Education and all teacher education majors across the university. We are so proud of all you've accomplished!