Professional development is available through the OASIS Ambassadors, K-12 teachers who have expertise in infusing international studies throughout the curricula. Effective professional development based on scientific research is available. Arrangements can be made with an ambassador of your choice from the following list.
Download a PDF version (58k) of the list below.
Dr. Brent Wendling serves as a professor in the Department of Advanced Professional Studies at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond and spends part of his time as the director of the Faculty Enhancement Center at the university. Having lived and taught in Brazil for 14 years and committing most of his career to international education, he is passionate about the interconnectedness of all people globally. Recently, he was designated the chair of the Provost’s Initiative on Globalization at UCO. He has many professional memberships and a wealth of international experience and is a strong asset to the OASIS initiative.
Christina Surber currently serves as a library media specialist at Hawthorne Elementary School in Tulsa. In the course of her teaching, she has always made it a practice to incorporate cultural studies into her curriculum. Her passion is to prepare her students for an increasingly global society by educating them on other countries and world cultures and showing them how their academic education is relevant to the world around them. She has had the opportunity to travel internationally, and these experiences have allowed her to create lesson units that involve other places in the world. She is fascinated by international studies and challenges her students to explore this area through research activities, writing assignments and presentations.
Rita Barnett teaches government at Woodward High School and has been in the field of education for 19 years. Among her many accomplishments, Rita was selected to attend the National Geographic Summer Institute in 1989, selected to be a member of the State Department of Education Committee for Learner Objectives – Social Studies, selected to be Reader for U.S. Government and Politics in 2003 and is currently serving as a member of the Education Advisory Board for the National Constitution Center. She has numerous professional memberships. Among them, the Oklahoma Council for Social Studies, the National Education Association, the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Teachers Advancing Citizenship Education and the Delta Kappa Gamma – Teacher’s Honor Sorority. E-mail: fun@itlnet.net or barnett@woodwardps.net
Cindy Smith teaches government, Oklahoma history and U.S. history at Woodward High School. She has been in the field of education for 11 years. Cindy is a member of the local, Oklahoma and National Education Associations. She also has memberships in the Oklahoma Council for the Social Studies, the Oklahoma Alliance for Geographic Education and the Delta Kappa Gamma – Teacher’s Honor Society. She serves as the coordinator for many community activities that include History Night for Parents and the Community and the Oklahoma Model Congress at the State Capitol.
Debra Davis is the Glenpool High School media specialist and has served in education for 22 years. Debra’s expertise involves integrating technology into the classroom and creating strategic approaches that will allow this technology to be used in promoting effective instruction. One of many of her major accomplishments is the creation of two course units entitled Greek History and World Studies and Travel. These curricula encourage active student participation in the course by mandating the visitation of certain Web sites which will enhance their learning on the specific subject content.
Barbara McCrary serves as a library media specialist at Eisenhower International School in the Tulsa Public School District. She has been in education for 23 years and has spent her last 10 years in library media. One of Barbara’s most significant accomplishments is a three-week trip to Japan where she was given the opportunity to build her professional development experience. She also attended a semester-long Faculty Development Institute on East Asia sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and Columbia University. Barbara also indulges in her passion for international curriculum by using opportunities to present material to the public. She conducted a presentation for the Oklahoma Consortium for Teaching about Asia. She regularly provides continuing education and mentoring for new TPS librarians and serves as the professional development chair for her school.
Kim Pennington teaches 10th, 11th and 12th graders at Westmoore High School. She has taught in the educational system for 10 years and has recently created a new international studies course for her school. After serving on numerous curriculum revision committees for world and Oklahoma history, Kim was motivated to pursue a master’s degree in education, which she finished in the summer of 2003. Today, Kim continues to focus on teaching students about global issues and integrating this content into a strategic learning style. As a result, her students excel academically in this subject matter – even learning about global conflict and resolution.
Jo Ann Chandler teaches at Roosevelt Elementary School in the Tulsa School District and has been in the field of education for an astounding 38 years. She has taught various subjects, including social studies (10 years), science (five years) and art (presently). Jo Ann has also served as president of the Oklahoma Art Education Association and just recently became a participant in the Faculty Development Institute on East Asia. She has integrated international content into her teaching, focusing student activities around East Asian countries that include China and Japan.
Kathy Fields is a teacher at Tulsa Central High School. She has been in the field of education for more than 20 years and has spent most of that time teaching world history. Her scope of teaching even includes educating adults via the Adult Education Program in World History. Her current subject area is social studies, and she enjoys teaching her students through a process called cooperative learning, by which students are engaged in the lesson through hands-on activities via a team effort. Kathy’s passion is finding ways to integrate international studies into both her world and U.S. history courses and sharing her experiences with her students and colleagues.
Pat Smith retired from Broken Arrow Public Schools and currently serves as one of only 225 American Astronomical Society Teacher Resource Agents in the United States. She taught in the educational system for 25 years, with most of that time spent in elementary education. Her last three years of teaching were in a special resource class of science and social studies for about 600 students in the first through fifth grades. She is on the design team and sustainability committee for the national education program, Journey Through the Universe from Challenger Center in Washington, D.C. She utilizes her passion for science, and space science in particular, to bring an integrated learning approach to students about science, geography and technology.
Judy Rowell teaches social studies at Union Intermediate High School. She has spent 30 years in this subject area and a total of 32 years in education. Some of her lessons to students have centered on Asia, Africa and the Philippines. Judy’s passion lies in traveling to various places around the world, such as libraries, museums and national/international landmarks that help to enhance her knowledge of teaching history or geography. Some of those places include the Alamo, Mount Vernon, Boston, Washington D.C., Japan, Bolivia, Guatemala and the cliff dwellings in New Mexico.
Pam Merrill is a K-12 curriculum consultant for the Edmond Public School District. She has served in education for 27 years, and her subject areas are geography, history and government. She has presented several workshops to audiences over the course of her professional career that include the National Council for Social Studies, the Oklahoma State Department of Education and the National Social Studies Supervisors Association. She also spends time as a guest lecturer for other teachers. Prior to her departure from the classroom, Pam developed and implemented a two-week unit of study designed to examine several geographic regions across the earth (using satellite and shuttle images) and analyze before/after images as they relate to some social, environmental or political historic event. This new unit of study has been integrated into the middle schools of the EPSD. E-mail: pmerrill@edmond.k12.ok.usor psmerrill@cox.net
Carol Scott teaches at Mustang Valley Elementary School. Her subject area is library media and technology, and she has been in this field for seven years. The primary focus of her work is to integrate technology with various types of subject content. She is well-known for her many presentations that she gives to groups for professional development. Among these audiences is the Oklahoma Technology Association. One of the highlights of Carol’s career is a current project that she is working on which would enable schools around the world to communicate, collaborate and contribute to each other’s learning in real time using videoconferencing as the means of contact.
Barbara Schindler, Ph.D. is an instructor at the University of Oklahoma. Her commitment to the field of education includes 32 years, and she has spent the last eight of them in social studies education. She has a doctorate in adult education, a master’s in history and a bachelor’s in economics. Utilizing her expertise in global knowledge, she specializes in teaching university seniors and graduate students how to infuse global content into their curriculum in order to expand their educational practice. Barbara is a member of the National and Oklahoma Councils for Social Studies, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and Phi Delta Kappa.
Lyndal Caddell currently teaches at Noble Middle School and has taught in the field of education for 29 years. He has taught many courses, including geography, U.S. history, economics, Oklahoma history, world history, leadership, sociology, civics and government. Lyndal is a member of the Oklahoma and National Councils for Social Studies, the Oklahoma Alliance for Geography Education, the Oklahoma and National Education Associations and the OU Friends of International Students Board of Directors. His family has been the American family for about 50 students from China, South Korea, Malaysia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Japan, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Venezuela and the Netherlands. He continues to share these experiences with colleagues and students alike.
William Polson has been teaching social studies and U.S. history at Union Intermediate High School for the past 10 years. Recently, he has been involved with Tulsa Technology Center and Tulsa Community College in teaching educators how to infuse technology into their classrooms. Bill is also an adjunct instructor for Tulsa Technology Center in their satellite class program. His lessons vary, offering classes that range from basic Internet research and PowerPoint presentations to building Web pages and instructional design and assessment. The past five years, Bill has utilized different forums to provide staff development presentations in his district. In his presentations, he is able to share these topics with his peers and colleagues. E-mail: p38fan@prodigy.net or PolsonB@Unionps.org
Blaise Glory works as a library media specialist at Irving Elementary School and Sadler Arts Academy in the Muskogee Public School District. She has been in her current role for close to seven years and has spent 17 years total in the field of education. One of Blaise’s major accomplishments was her development of a new unit focusing on the Chinese New Year, which she incorporated into her curriculum. Her next objective along this same methodology is to create another unit which compares and contrasts several versions of Cinderella. Blaise continues in her professional development to acquire new approaches and strategies which will help her to enhance the learning capability of her students. She also continues to share these new ideas through presentations to her colleagues.
Teresa Tyra teaches seventh-grade language arts and U. S. history at Altus Middle School. She has taught in education for 17 years and takes a keen interest in technology. She was recently awarded a grant for the “Innovative Use of Technology to Enhance Core Curriculum.” Teresa continually shares the new innovative skills, ideas and educational information that she acquires via presentations to other colleagues in her district. She is currently using the grant funds that were awarded to her to help integrate global content into her language arts curriculum. E-mail: ttyra@hotmail.com or tneal@altusschools.k12.ok.us
Lynn Tilley has spent a total of 16 years in the field of education, with two of those years in library media where she currently serves. She represents the Comanche School District at Comanche Elementary School and spends a lot of her time trying to find ways to infuse global content into her classroom curriculum. In the spring of 2004, Lynn was able to collaborate with one of their fourth-grade classes to do a special study on the country of Turkey. As a result, the class had the opportunity to do a 90-minute distance learning conference with another fourth-grade class in Istanbul, Turkey. Lynn continues to work collaboratively on a daily basis with other teachers, encouraging them to incorporate an integrated, information literacy approach to instruction and presenting information to them in order to meet their educational needs.
Sandra Babcock has spent 15 years in education and her area of expertise is in communications and the global economy. She works for the Southern Oklahoma Technology Center in Ardmore. Sandra has given many presentations and training workshops throughout her career. Among them is the Oklahoma Consortium for Teaching About Asia Summer Institute (training) and Building Classroom and Corporate Connections and Community Collaborations (presentation). Sandra infuses many aspects of global content into her curriculum. She instructs her students to develop international marketing plans, identify major cultural aspects of international business representatives, create orientation manuals for specific geographical areas in other countries, and assess benefits and drawbacks for doing international business in a certain country.
Adys Alstatt is a Spanish teacher at Edmond Memorial High School. She has been in education for 21 years. Adys has presented many workshops on the music, literature and arts of the Spanish-speaking world. Born as a native Cuban, she is able to bring the richness of her culture to her students and share her personal experiences with her colleagues. Her main focus is to use Spanish culture and language as a venue for her students to use in their professional goals.
Kathy de Silva is currently an educator for Summit Middle School in Edmond. She graduated with a bachelor's in elementary education from the University of Texas, Austin. Currently, Kathy is pursuing a master’s degree in general education at the University of Central Oklahoma. Having lived in Mexico for 27 years, Kathy has a passion for studying international cultures – especially the Hispanic culture. She is certified in Spanish K-12 and elementary education. Kathy is also a member of Kappa Delta Pi.
Vickie Bond teaches social studies at Summit Middle School in Edmond. She has been in the field of education for 13 years. She currently instructs a class on eastern hemisphere geography. Vickie integrates her personal experience of living in Europe to enhance the curriculum in her class and make the class more enjoyable for her students. For the last three years, Vickie has had the opportunity to train teachers for the assessment of National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. She continues to endeavor in her efforts of promoting global infusion. E-mail: Vickiebond10@hotmail.com or Vickie_bond@edmond.k12.ok.us
Kathy Agosta has taught geography, science, math, language arts, reading and social studies over the course of her 22 years in education. She is currently a teacher at Summit Middle School in Edmond. Kathy teaches a unit called Down the Street, Around the World, which focuses on three aspects of global education in her classroom: access to education, illiteracy and citizenship education. In addition to this endeavor, Kathy works in various capacities to support her own professional development, including being a facilitator for the Jason Project, a coordinator and teacher for the OKAGE Institute for Integrating Geography into Math and Science Curriculum and a teacher consultant to help initiate the Arizona Alliance for Geographic Education. E-mail: Kathy_Agosta@edmond.k12.ok.us or Kagosta7@aol.com
Lisa Hunt is a library media specialist in the Moore Public School District and has been in education for 10 years. She is very skilled in language arts, children’s literature, and information and technology, but her passion is for social studies. She works regularly with her school staff to develop curriculum-related lessons, and she also trains teachers how to utilize specific resources. Lisa integrates art, technology, multicultural literature and international elements into her presentations, which she diligently shares with her colleagues as well as district-wide audiences attending district workshops.
Doris Dewberry teaches language arts at Noble Middle School and has a total of 21 years experience in education. She has more than 200 hours of professional development and has used this knowledge to acquire the skills needed for presenting her own material. Doris has presented for OWP, the Oklahoma State Department of Education and various areas in the Stillwater School District. She is passionate about integrated international content and enjoys sharing her personal experiences with students and colleagues alike. She has had the opportunity to take students to Europe on three different occasions and served as a host family for two international students attending the University of Oklahoma. Among the many places that she has visited include London, Paris, Rome, Germany, Wales and north Italy.
Beverly Smith-Edwards has been a library media specialist for 17 years and currently works for the Norman Public School District. She specializes in using instructional technology to enhance student learning. Beverly, who also goes by Buffy, believes it is critical that educators provide students with the opportunity to explore global awareness through instructional lessons that infuse cultural knowledge into classroom content. As a result, her hope is that students develop a sound cultural respect and are prepared to be proactive citizens in the world. Beverly is a member of the Oklahoma Education Association, the Oklahoma Library Association, the American Association of School Librarians and the Oklahoma Association of School Library Media Specialists.
Priscilla Harris is agraduate of the University of Arkansas. For the past eight years, she has served as an international protocol officer for the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. Now retired, Priscilla remains active with Sister Cities International (SCI), where she serves as the SCI Oklahoma state coordinator. Priscilla is a past president of Tulsa Global Alliance (TGA), the non-profit organization that coordinates the City of Tulsa Sister Cities program. In June of 2003, Tulsa Global Alliance selected Priscilla as a Global Vision Award winner. This award was a foreshadowing of what one of her greatest accomplishments would be. She helped to develop Oklahoma ’s International Strategic Plan and assisted in establishing Oklahoma Associations Supporting International Studies (OASIS), which promotes the infusion of international studies in K-16 curricula.