Midwest Central High School teacher earns National Board
Certification
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[June 15, 2013]
MANITO --
Nicole Flowers-Kimmerle, a teacher at Midwest Central High
School, has earned the highest credential available to American
educators by recently becoming a National Board Certified Teacher
through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
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Midwest Central High School Principal Jay Blair praised her
accomplishment. "Achieving the National Board Certification is no
small feat. It is very time-consuming and rigorous," he said. "I
know Nicole has benefited from this experience, and I know our
students will benefit also."
National Board Certification is achieved through a rigorous,
performance-based, peer-reviewed assessment of a teacher's
pedagogical skills and content knowledge. The certification process
takes one to three years to complete. While licensing standards set
the basic requirements to teach in a state, NBCT's demonstrate
advanced teaching knowledge, skills and practices similar to the
certifications earned by experts in law and medicine.
New findings from Harvard University's Strategic Data Project
from the LA Unified School District affirm the strong positive
impact of NBCT's in the classroom. The study found that on average,
National Board Certified Teachers outperform other teachers with the
same levels of experience by 0.07 and 0.03 standard deviations in
elementary math and English language arts respectively, which is
roughly equivalent to one to two months of additional instruction.
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"These latest data illustrate what education policymakers already
know: Teachers who become National Board Certified are highly
effective and strengthen student achievement," said Dr. Ron Thorpe,
president and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching
Standards. "They demonstrate the powerful impact that accomplished
teachers have daily in their classrooms.
Flowers-Kimmerle has been at Midwest Central for seven years and
currently teaches chemistry and physical science.
She graduated from the University of Illinois in Urbana with a
bachelor's degree in crop science and worked on sweet corn
production research for her master's degree in agronomy from the
University of Wisconsin in Madison. After her master's program she
worked as a research associate for Montana State University Research
Farms in Billings, Mont. While in Montana, she enrolled in education
classes so that she could teach students about what she had learned
about science and research.
[Text from file received from
Midwest Central High School] |