About Jan

Janice Holter Kittok is a sought after presenter whose lively and thought-provoking seminars consistently receive raving reviews. She is a knowledgeable and intuitive master teacher and education leader who knows how to engage her audience throughout the whole day.

Jan speaks from her 30 years of experience as a K-12 teacher, college instructor, curriculum resource teacher, dean, and educational leader. Doing national-level presentations, serving as the World Languages Specialist at the Minnesota Department of Education and testifying as a world languages advocate before the Minnesota Senate and House Educational Committees are highlight achievements of her career.

Academic Background
Jan holds Minnesota K-12 Principal and K-12 Spanish Licenses. She earned a Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction-Teaching Second Languages and Cultures from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish and Education from Concordia College, Moorhead, MN. Always in the forefront of her profession, Jan attends and frequently presents at annual state, regional and national education conferences. She keeps current with initiatives in educational leadership, school administration teacher effectiveness, brain-based learning, and global competence. Jan has attended training in Cognitive Coaching, Danielson’s Framework for Teaching, Understanding by Design, Differentiated Instruction, Dimensions of Learning brain research and International Baccalaureate Programmes.

Honors/Awards
Numerous honors and awards bear witness to the caliber of Jan’s work. Minnesota’s world language professional organization (MCTLC) honored her with the Emma Birkmaier Award, the lifetime achievement award for teaching and leadership excellence. The Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (CSCTFL) honored Jan with the prestigious Founders’ Award in recognition of her leadership and service to the profession. The AATSP-MN chose her as a recipient of the Narvaéz Award, the Minnesota Spanish Teacher of the Year. The Minnesota Council on the Teaching of Languages and Cultures (MCTLC) and the Central States Conference awarded the “Best of Minnesota” and the “Best of Central States” to her Content-Based Storytelling (CBS) conference session. The University of Minnesota selected Jan to mentor teachers doing graduate work in a language immersion and content-based instruction (CBI) methods course. As a graduate student herself, Jan wrote a content-based thematic unit entitled “Los Maya y El Norte”, later published as a model unit in Proficiency-Oriented Language Instruction and Assessment: A Curriculum Handbook for Teachers published by CARLA (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition), Diane J. Tedick, editor, Minneapolis, MN.
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Workshop Presenter

A frequent presenter at professional conferences across the country, Jan also contracts to provide workshops for organizations and school districts. She has presented across the United States, in Canada and China.

Motivated both personally and professionally, Jan founded Educator in Service to share her expertise and passion for the teaching and learning of other languages and how to transform the world language curriculum so language learners build global competency skills in addition to communication skills.

Selected contractors of Janice Holter Kittok’s Workshops

Association of Chinese and Mongolia International Schools (ACAMIS)
Appleton Public Schools, Wisconsin
Blaine Ray Workshops, Utah
Bureau of Education Research, Washington
Center for Advanced Research in Language Acquisition, U.S. Department of Education National Language Resource Center (CARLA)
Keller Public Schools, Texas
Minneapolis Public Schools, Minnesota
Middle Tennessee State University
Minnesota Department of Education
Minnetonka Schools Immersion Teacher Training, Minnesota
Moline Public Schools, Illinois
Springfield Public Schools, Missouri
Oakland Public Schools, California
Ohio Foreign Language Teachers Association