A graduate of APU’s K-8 teacher certificate program and the university’s Master of Arts Program, middle school teacher Robyn Lin has been named an Alaska Educator of the Year for leadership that inspires students and peers alike.
“I love sharing my passion for learning, language, and culture,” said Robyn, an Anchorage School District teacher and teaching specialist with the Chinese Immersion Program at Begich Middle School. “The award came as a total surprise.”
Representing APU at a luncheon on May 12 were Provost Hilton Hallock and President Janelle Vanasse.
“Robyn Lin exemplifies everything the university asks of our graduates,” President Vanasse said. “All of us at APU are very proud of her dedication.”
Robyn, whose parents were teachers in Taiwan, earned her teaching certificate at APU in 2013 and after a break returned to APU to complete her master’s in 2017. Following a degree path designed to accommodate classroom teachers, Robyn applied her expertise in curriculum planning to research her MAP capstone on Chinese immersion pedagogy.
“My MAP project focused on creating materials for early literacy development for Chinese and non-Chinese speakers,” Robyn said. As a MAP student Robyn noticed that while interest in Chinese immersion pedagogy had been gaining, published learning materials tended to overlook the ways that developmental stages among young children tend to be similar. Her master’s research involved a focus on those similarities, especially gross motor skill development, to benefit immersion students even though Chinese and English orthography is very different.
“Working on my MAP project really helped me understand immersion education and how early literacy skills developed for different languages,” Robyn said. “It equipped me to create and plan my teaching better.”
Robyn is among 20 educators chosen statewide for the 2023 Teacher of the Year award sponsored by Enstar Natural Gas Co. Prior to pursuing her teaching certificate at APU, Robyn served eight years starting in 2003 as an ASD tutor for elementary school students learning English as a second language. “Students’ progress is the reward that keeps me going all these years,” she said.
