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“The classroom,” writes teacher educator Sharon Feiman-Nemser, “is not only a place to teach children, but a place to learn more about teaching and learning.” Graduates of ACE’s Teaching Fellows Program often express similar sentiments, seeing their first two years of ACE-sponsored teacher training as a beginning phase of what might more accurately be called a career-long continuum of teacher learning.

This was first published on esteem.nd.edu.

Arielle Gannon, who graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a degree in theoretical physics, completed Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program where she spent two years teaching AP Physics 1 and 2, AP Calculus AB, and Robotics at a Catholic school in Mission, Tex., and earned a master’s degree in education. She created a robotics program at the school that sparked her interest in entrepreneurship.

Boston is one of the few major metropolitan hubs throughout the United States without a formal community of ACE Teaching Fellows. With nearly 75 ACE graduates living in the Boston area, though, it has become difficult not to conceive of Boston as an “ACE Community.” As one of the longest-standing ACE Advocates regions, Boston has become a proof point for the belief that ACE, more than a program, is an apostolic movement of lay people capable of supporting, sustaining, and transforming Catholic schools in an ongoing, local capacity.

Ellen Murphy, a graduate of the 22^nd Cohort of ACE Teaching Fellows, chose to remain at McGill-Toolen Catholic High School, her ACE placement school in Mobile, Alabama, where she teaches 9^th and 10^th grade Math. 

In this segment of ACE Advocates’s Teachers Helping Teachers series, Ellen shares some of the strategies she has employed to create a culture of student engagement in her math classroom. Ellen’s classroom culture is built around three key strategies: intentional student grouping, a use of concrete, real world examples in which to ground the mathematical content, and the use of iPad technology and math software programs to support student learning.

In its nearly 25 years of existence, the Alliance for Catholic Education has formed over 2,000 teachers and leaders in service to Catholic schools. In an effort to disperse the knowledge and creativity of ACE Teachers, ACE Advocates is proud to launch "Teachers Helping Teachers", a series where our graduates who have remained in teaching can share resources, strategies, and projects with other teachers in the field.