A May 2016 graduate of Southern Arkansas University has been honored with an outstanding teacher award in Fort Worth, Texas.

Janae Mosbey, a fifth-grade science teacher at Mitchell Boulevard Elementary School, was chosen as Outstanding Teacher from Human Capital Management on March 2. The distinction furthers her career goals and is one more step in her professional growth and development. It is also a reflection of her passion for teaching, a passion she discovered while studying Early Childhood Education at SAU.

The Texarkana, Ark., native said SAU’s professors made her “fall in love” with both science and the idea of becoming a teacher. Mosbey credits Dr. Angela Stanford and Jennifer Louden, assistant professors of education, with providing “rigorous activities” that engaged her as a student.“I still talk to Dr. Stanford on a regular basis,” Mosbey said. “I received a ton of support and motivation from my professors. They challenged and pushed us to do our best.”

Mosbey, who graduated from Genoa Central in 2012, entered SAU on academic and cheerleading scholarships. In addition to being a cheerleader, she pledged Sigma Sigma Sigma and served as president of Kappa Delta Pi. She also met her fiancé, Brady Capshaw, at SAU. They will marry on June 10. Capshaw was a Mulerider baseball player and is a financial advisor.

Mosbey advanced through the Fort Worth ISD’s hiring process sufficiently to be invited to a job fair, where she interviewed at an elementary school booth. Though initially offered a position teaching fourth-grade writing, “I’m a math-and-science kind of girl,” she said; she eventually was hired as a science teacher.“I love my job, I love my kids,” she said. “I teach 66 fifth-graders. I’m very sarcastic, and they get me. They understand me. I aim to inspire them every day and provide a supportive environment for learning.”

She said she incorporates interactive notebooks, projects, and “science raps” in her teaching. “They love that,” she said, “it’s very student-centered, project-based, and collaborative.”Her students use their notebooks to “write down their observations of any data they’ve collected, they draw and make diagrams … I can see their thinking through their notebook.”

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