Meet Ashley Kevil ('23)

Ashley Kevil (’23) 

What do you love most about UTA? 
What I love most about UTA is the wide range of opportunities on campus. I love that when you walk on campus you feel that you a part of a learning community that is constantly changing and growing.

Do you have any favorite Education professors? 
I had the pleasure to work with Dr. Kathleen Tice during my time in the Education program and while completing my Honors Capstone project. During this, I saw Dr. Tice constantly go above and beyond to help all students and prospective teachers in any way she could. She truly cares about education and her students!

Why did you choose to major in Education? 
I switched from Biology to Education during my fall semester at UTA ultimately because I missed teaching. I had my first look at teaching while in the Ready, Set, Teach program as a senior in high school. I loved teaching during this time but decided that that I would stick with my original plan to eventually enter a career as a wildlife biologist when deciding my major at UTA. However, I found myself missing the classroom experience while in my freshman year at UTA and from this knew that I wanted to make the switch to become an elementary teacher.

What is your why? Why do you love Education? 
My “why” for teaching is that I ultimately felt that my life was leading me into the education field. I know that teaching has challenging days like any other job, but I know that I have been equipped to work this job with success and am making an impact in ways that I may not even see. For example, a quote from one of my UTA professors that I will never forget is that all children need a smile and to hear their name each day, but not every student will receive this. So, every day I am in the classroom, I make sure to speak to each child and have them feel heard and appreciated.

What has been your experience as an Honors student? 
Being in the Honors College along with the College of Education has allowed me to enhance my studies. I have had the privilege to work with many professors at UTA on topics that have enabled me to dig much deeper into various teaching aspects. These projects have helped me look into the research of various teaching methods and sociology studies, and I feel better equipped as a teacher because of them.

Throughout my experience in the Honors College, I have had the opportunity to explore my studies in the Education field in greater depths. Because of this, to me, the Honors Degree is equivalent to hard work and knowledge that I can utilize in my future profession as an educator to better serve students as their teacher.

What was your Honors Capstone project? 
I chose to implement a writing workshop as my Honor’s Capstone project to study the impact of a writing workshop on a student. I had learned about the writing workshop approach as a coaching method to teaching writing in Dr. Tice’s 4376 lecture and was curious to the efficiency of a writing workshop. I worked with a third grade child in AISD over a period of eleven weeks, three days a week. I saw growth in the student’s ability to use writing conventions and in the student’s affective motivation. The student moved from relying on pictures to convey details in a story that would be one paragraph long, to writing multiple pages for one story, each story structured with a beginning, middle, and end. He stated that writing was boring in the first session, by the second session he was excited to come to the writing workshop and was brainstorming personal narratives to write over his weekends, and by the last session he told his friends they should try writing sometime because it is fun.

Any words of wisdom for others considering a degree in Education? 
Get to know who you work with. Become friends with the other College of Education students and when in student teaching, befriend your mentor teachers and grade level team. These connects are so important to navigating the challenging aspects of the road to graduating and will make each day so much more fun.

What’s next after graduation? 
I have passed my certification exams and am hoping to join my sister in Arlington I.S.D. as a lower elementary teacher!