Walker Currie, a student in the M.Ed. and Initial Teaching License in Second Language Education program, and Yuriy Maksymovych, an alumnus of the program, were recently recognized for their outstanding work in the classroom by the Minnesota Council for Teaching Languages and Cultures (MCTLC)

Yuriy Maskymovych is receiving the Early Career Award from MCTLC for his outstanding instruction in a world-language classroom as a first-year language teacher in Minnesota. Yuriy graduated in 2018 with his M.Ed. and earned teaching licenses in Japanese and English as a Second Language.

Walker Currie is receiving the Outstanding Student Teacher Award from MCTLC for his service and extraordinary potential in providing excellent instruction in the world language classroom as a student teacher of a world language in Minnesota. He earned his teaching license in Spanish and English as a Second Language in Spring 2018 and will graduate with his Master of Education in the Spring, 2019. He began teaching Spanish in his own classroom at Edison High School in Minneapolis this Fall.

“Every school, classroom, and group of students is unique and comes with unique challenges,” Currie says of his initial experience as a Spanish teacher. “The M.Ed/teaching license program and student teaching gave me a toolbox of techniques, theory, and ideas, and now I am trying different things out in the classroom and seeing what actually works in my specific context.”

Learn more about the M.Ed. and Teacher Licensure programs in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.