Erin Conway

Erin completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees at UW-Madison. Erin is fluent in English and Spanish. She began her professional career as a bilingual teacher in the Madison Metropolitan School District. Her desire to seek a deeper understanding of her students and foster intercultural connections in the field of education lead her to accept a Peace Corps assignment in Guatemala.

For the past ten years, Erin worked both teaching and training teachers in Guatemala, and most recently Erin worked as the Director of Literacy Staff Training and Curriculum Development with Child Aid, a position which prepared her both to provide insight into the development of key materials and curriculum related to literacy organizations as well as an understanding of the process related to building and managing a nonprofit organization, working with board members, staff and volunteers. For Child Aid, Erin wrote and edited three manuals for teacher, librarian and staff training.

She learned to weave on the traditional backstrap loom, a construct she currently employs to analyze teaching. Experiences include writing, implementing and adapting teacher coaching practices for diverse learners in professional development sessions with teachers and other educational staff. This research also plays a major role in her writing and implementing curriculum for diverse literate and illiterate learners.

Throughout her years in Guatemala, Erin started and managed her own non profit, Weave. Hope. Inc., in order to promote literacy in the Mayan village of Santa Catarina Palopó. She was responsible for all fundraising and donor communication as well as program development and library staff training.

Currently Erin applies her skills and experiences in her home community as Program Manager with The Literacy Connection, a nonprofit that provides services to adults pursuing their own self and academic improvement goals in northern Rock County. As Program Manager she is charge of day to day operations as well as curriculum development and volunteer tutor coaching. A key piece of this content is designed around the quarterly Tutor Tips that she composes. Erin is an Americorp member participating in a state wide initiative, Play & Read, as part of a DPI collaboration to enrich family literacy. Through this opportunity she continues to explore the diverse definitions of “teachers”, their characteristics and student centered coaching in a variety of contexts.