Dr. Teresa Carranza
ESL Program Development and Advocacy
Foundations of Dual Immersion
Dr. Teresa Carranza holds a B.S. in Elementary Education and has completed extensive graduate coursework at the University of Wisconsin- Madison leading to teaching credentials in Elementary, ESL and Bilingual Education as well as both a Master's and Doctoral Degree in Educational Leadership from Edgewood College. Her dissertation topic, “Principal’s Ethical and Social Justice Leadership for Serving ELLs, ESL and Bilingual Teachers’ Perspectives” was a mixed method study involving over 140 participants. Teresa has more than 18 years of teaching experience as a classroom, ESL and bilingual teacher in grades K-8th grade. Her experiences also include two years teaching English in Mexico City, VISTA Project Supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, consulting work for the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at U.W. Madison, Verona Schools’ ESL Bilingual Program Coordinator, and Madison Metropolitan School District Dual Language Immersion Program Planner. Teresa is currently serving as the Principal of Midvale Elementary School in MMSD, a dual language immersion program site.
Mariana Castro
Curriculum Design & Assessment
CTELL: Second Language Acquisition in the Science Classroom
Mariana Castro received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and a Master of Science in Curriculum and Instruction from both UW - Madison and U.W. Whitewater with an emphasis on Special Issues of Learning Across the Lifespan. She has 11 years of experience in the Madison Metropolitan School District as a Chemistry teacher as well as an ESL teacher and Bilingual Resource Specialist. Mariana has shared her expertise in the ESL/Bilingual program field through a variety of presentations around the country and is currently an Educational Specialist for the WIDA consortium.
Pam Dorn
Second Language Acquisition in the Content Areas
Pam Dorn received a B.S. degree in Elementary Education from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics from the University of South Florida. She has 16 years of experience teaching second through sixth grades in Florida and Wisconsin and is currently teaching ESL at Glendale Elementary in Madison. Throughout Pam's teaching career she has created, developed and modified curriculum for diverse populations of learners and has guided students to develop meta-cognition in reading and writing.
Kenneth Fasching-Varner
Assistant Professor of Education
Paradigms of ESL/Bilingual Education
Dr. Kenny Fasching-Varner is an Assistant Professor of Education at Edgewood College. Kenny holds a B.A. in Inclusive Education and Spanish with a minor in Women’s Studies from Niagara University, a M.S in Literacy from St. John Fisher College, and a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture from The Ohio State University. Kenny’s areas of expertise include cultural and linguistic diversity, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP), Critical Race Theory (CRT), and literacy pedagogy. Kenny’s K-12 teaching includes 2nd and 4th grade bilingual special education, middle school special education and Spanish, and high school Spanish. Kenny teaches classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels in general pedagogical foundations, language acquisition, methods of fine arts, and diversity.
Sara Huse
ESL Curriculum Design & Assessment
Sara Huse graduated from UW-Madison in 1998 with a major in Elementary Education and a minor in Spanish. Sara began her career teaching third grade at an elementary school in Waukesha. She taught there for three years while getting her bilingual endorsement and master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction from UW-Whitewater. In 2001, Sara returned to Madison to help begin the bilingual education program at Cherokee Heights Middle School, teaching in a sixth grade bilingual classroom.
John Kibler
CTELL: Paradigms of ESL/Bilingual Education in the Elementary Classroom
John M. Kibler is the lead consultant and founder of Tomotto Intercultural Consulting, an organization dedicated to aiding K-12 educational institutions in dealing effectively and constructively with the very real challenges of culture, race, class, and language in an American context, working primarily in the Midwest. He continues to work as an educational consultant, instructor and cultural specialist for the Illinois Resource Center, providing educational institutions within Illinois, technical assistance and support through training and consultancy services regarding educational equity for culturally and linguistically diverse students, bilingual education and English-as-a-Second-Language program development, and the implementation of multilingual and multicultural education.
Bob Kohl
ESL/Bilingual Assessment
Following many years of teaching and administrative roles in school settings, Bob joined the World Class Instructional Design and Assessment Consortium (WIDA) as an ELL Testing Coordinator. Through professional development workshops for teachers and administrators nationwide, he facilitates curriculum development, standards alignment and effective assessment procedures.
Ruthann Lewis
Second Language Acquisition in the Content Areas
Ruthann Lewis earned her B.S. from the California State College of PA, an M.S. Linguistics degree from West Virginia University and a Certification in Teaching of English as a Second Language from UW-Madison. She joined the TESOL/Bilingual Education Program at Edgewood College in the fall of 2009. For nineteen years she was a teacher of Spanish, French, and ESL in the Madison Metropolitan School District. As a secondary Program Support Teacher in the Division of ESL/Bilingual Education/Dual Immersion for MMSD, she provides leadership for middle and high school staff, mentoring new teachers, providing professional development in the area of teaching English language learners, and designing secondary service delivery models. Ruthann also serves as College Supervisor for student teachers in Edgewood's TESOL/Bilingual Ed. program. In addition to her work at Edgewood, Ruthann is involved with the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) participating in projects related to instruction and assessment of English Language Learners.
Mercedes Martin
Second Language Acquisition
Mercedes graduated from Edgewood College in 2007 with an M.A. in Educational Administration and is currently serving as Interim Principal and ESL teacher at Westside Elementary School in Sun Prairie. She is highly involved in the field of TESOL, served as President of WITESOL in 2007 and is co-creator/facilitator of Edgewood's Networking mini-conferences for ESL teachers.
Silvia Romero-Johnson
Language Focused Instruction and Practice
Bilingual Curriculum Design & Assessment
CTELL: Second Language Acquisition in the Math Classroom
Silvia Romero-Johnson received a B.S. degree in Business at the Universidad Católica de Santiago del Estero, Argentina, and a B.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, a Master's Degree in Educational Leadership at Cardinal Stritch University (Spring 2008). She is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Educational Leadership at Edgewood College. She holds teaching credentials in ESL, Bilingual Education and Spanish. Her experiences include teaching English as a foreign language in Argentina and bilingual education and mathematics at the middle and high school levels. Silvia is currently the Coordinator for Bilingual Education and Dual Language Immersion for the Madison Metropolitan School District.
Emily Zoeller
Biliteracy Development
Emily Zoeller earned a B.A. degree from the University of Notre Dame and an M.A. degree from the University of San Diego where she studied Bilingual/Cross-cultural Education. She began her teaching journey as an Americorps Volunteer at a charter school in San Diego City Schools, and her passion for social justice led her to pursue a career in bilingual education. A fluent Spanish speaker, Emily has lived abroad in Spain and Ecuador and has teaching experience in first through fifth grades. Her interests include literacy development of bilingual learners, approaches to teaching Spanish literacy, and curriculum and instruction in dual language immersion environments. Emily was able to support teachers in these areas as a literacy coach at Nuestro Mundo Elementary School. She is currently working towards certification in Descubriendo la Lectura, an early Spanish literacy intervention to be implemented in Madison Metropolitan School District.