NJTESOL/NJBE Spring Conference Invited Speakers
Tuesday & Wednesday
Dr. Lynn Shafer Willner designs language standards for multilingual learners, digital tools, and accessibility/accommodations research and guidelines. She is a member of the WIDA Assessment Team. Her current work focuses on the integration of the WIDA English Language Development (ELD) Standards Framework into the WIDA suite of assessments. Most recently, Lynn developed the alignment architecture for the WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework (2020 Edition). She has also authored a variety of articles on the WIDA Standards Framework, standards alignment, digitalization, and accessibility for multilingual learners.
Tuesday
Dr. Fernando Naiditch holds a PhD in Multilingual Multicultural Studies from New York University. He has taught in South America, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. Dr. Naiditch has published in the fields of Multilingual and Multicultural Education, TESOL, Critical Pedagogy, and Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching. His research focuses on second language and literacy acquisition and development, immigrant and refugee education, culturally and linguistically responsive curricula, and critical pedagogy as a tool to achieve equity and social justice in education.
Allison Connolly is a history teacher and former Equity Coach for the Township of Ocean School District. Working with Garden State Equality and Make It Better for Youth, Ms. Connolly played an integral role in writing the curriculum for New Jersey’s LGBT and Disability Inclusive Curriculum mandate. She now serves as the chair of the NJDOE Advisory Commission on LGBTQIA+ Youth Equity and Inclusion in Schools and sits on the NJDOE Commission on Holocaust Education.
Kate Okeson is the Executive Director of the New Jersey Advisory Commission on LGBTQIA+ Youth Equity and Inclusion in Schools, which she comes to after 27 years as a classroom teacher. In advocacy and education spaces, Kate organizes people and resources to affirm and accept our young LGBTQ+ community through education, outreach, and social opportunities. Over the last several years, this has meant supporting educators and school leaders in implementing the LGBTQIA+ inclusive education mandate sustainably, with support and integrity.
(See the speakers for Wednesday & Thursday below.)
Andrea Honigsfeld, EdD, is professor in the School of Education and Human Services at Molloy College, Rockville Centre, New York, where she teaches graduate courses related to cultural and linguistic diversity and TESOL methodology. She frequently offers professional learning opportunities, primarily focusing on effective content and language integration strategies and collaborative practices for ELD and bilingual/dual language specialists and general-education teachers. She coauthored over 60 articles and chapters and coauthored or coedited over 30 books, 11 of which are national bestsellers.
Dr. Joan Lachance is an Associate Professor of Education and serves as the Program Director of the undergraduate and graduate Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) programs at UNC Charlotte. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses focused on Second Language Acquisition and Authentic Assessment with English Learners. She also works closely with teacher candidates during internship semesters. Her research agenda focuses on dual language teacher preparation, academic language acquisition, and authentic assessment with current studies on dual language pedagogies, edTPA systems of support, as well as co- teaching and ESL teacher collaboration.
Dr. Audrey Cohan is senior dean for Research, Scholarship, and Graduate Studies at Molloy University, NY. Her work focuses on the intersection of TESOL and special education, and she has taught at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. She has coauthored/coedited 13 books and numerous articles.
Kate Seltzer is an Associate Professor of ESL and Bilingual Education at Rowan University where she teaches pre- and in-service teachers of emergent bilingual students. Her research focuses on helping schools and teachers build on students’ rich language practices while also disrupting their own ideologies about these students and their ways of using language.
Dr. Rebecca E. Linares is an Associate Professor of ESL and Bilingual Education at Rowan University. Her research examines the multilingual, transnational literacy practices of emergent multilingual adolescents, specifically how they access and utilize literacy knowledge in their home language(s) to negotiate participation in new and shifting cultural and linguistic landscapes.
