Polk State professor and alum achieves doctorate
Professor of Education Joanne Scharff serves as an inspiration to her students as not only a Polk State College alum but also a recent Southeastern University graduate who achieved her Doctorate of Education.
As a proud Polk State graduate, Scharff is an advocate for the College and its impact on students within her own classroom, sharing with her Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education students the strong foundation that they are gaining to achieve their academic and career goals.
Scharff’s testimony was strengthened in September when she successfully defended her dissertation in which she studied the self-efficacy of elementary teachers in differentiating instruction for students with reading difficulties such as dyslexia.
“My motto in the classroom is ‘Know better, do better,’” Scharff exclaimed. “I want to practice what I preach. Achieving my doctorate is an example to my students that as educators we are lifelong learners who should always strive to do better for our students.”
“The first thing I tell my students during my introduction on the first day of class is that I am a proud Polk State alum,” she added. “I was right where you are and I will see you through to graduation.”
Lifelong learning
Scharff comes from a family of dedicated educators, including her mother, Martha Santiago, who retired from Polk State as Provost after more than 13 years of service to the College. Santiago also served Polk County Public Schools for 27 years.
“I always wanted to be a teacher. I remember begging my mom to bring home her teacher planning and grade books,” Scharff recalled. “I joke that my brother, also a graduate from Polk State, is smart because of me because I was trying to act as his teacher when he was only 4 years old.”
From high school, Scharff enrolled at the University of Florida to study education.
“Then I met a guy,” she said. “It ended up working out. We’ve been married for over 25 years.”
And that’s what brought Scharff to Polk State, where she could finish her Associate in Arts degree closer to home and at an affordable cost. She transferred to what was then Warner Southern College, where she changed her major to business because it aligned with her work with the family business processing loans and mortgages.
“I ended up doing that for 10 years, but I always missed education,” Scharff admitted. “I was constantly being pulled back to my desire to teach and thought for years that I should’ve stayed in education.”
In 2009, when the mortgage industry crashed, Scharff viewed it as the opportunity to get back to doing what she loves. She became a kindergarten teacher with Polk County Public Schools and returned to Polk State to complete her teacher certification.
“The days are long, and times can be tough, but there is nothing like the feeling of a kid being excited that they can read or giving you that hug at the end of the day because they need that one last feeling of security before they go home,” Scharff reflected.
She quickly became dedicated to lifelong learning as she realized the value of being the best she could be for her students.
“Specifically with literacy,” Scharff explained. “In teaching students how to read, I realized that I needed all the knowledge and tools I could get so that I could best teach and support my students.”
In 2012, she received her Master’s in Reading Education from Grand Canyon University and began serving as a part-time instructor in the teacher certification program at Polk State where she had been a student.
“The decision to start teaching in higher education was the impact that I could have on more students’ lives,” Scharff explained. “I tell my students [at Polk State] that they are the customer but not what keeps me up at night – it’s those little kiddos who will be in their future classrooms who motivate me to show up as the best instructor I can be for our teacher candidates.”
Polk State: The ‘cherry on top’
After years of teaching in Polk County Public Schools and serving as a part-time instructor at Polk State, the opportunity arose for Scharff to join the College as full-time faculty in 2021 in the Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education Program.
“It wasn’t an easy decision, but in working with future teachers, I can have an even bigger impact through their future classrooms,” Scharff said.
And she relates to many of her students.
“We have teacher candidates who are career changers like I was,” she explained. “I call our teacher candidates a smorgasbord – a good mixture – which enriches our program tremendously.
“We have students who are 20 years old and graduating because they attended one of our collegiate high schools, and we have students in their 60s coming back to school after their children have grown,” she added. “We enjoy diverse, enriching conversations in our classrooms which will make our teacher candidates even better in our local classrooms. This is something I love about our program and something that makes us unique because we are a state college and students who are ‘traditional’ to us may be ‘nontraditional’ to universities.”
Polk State is the only public post-secondary institution in Polk County offering state-approved teacher education preparation programs. With built-in measurements for state-mandated standards that were developed in collaboration with Polk County Public Schools – Polk County’s largest employer – the College creates graduates who are ready to immediately and successfully lead classrooms. The Polk State Education Program boasts a 100% pass rate on the teacher certification exam, with graduates represented in more than 40 Polk County Public Schools.
“Students may think when they get their degree from Polk State, it’s not a big deal,” she added. “That is simply not true. My Polk State education got me to where I am today, and this is a driving passion for me and our program. I want us to be the top-notch, go-to education program in Polk County. We are already seeing it. Principals are calling because they know our graduates come to them well-trained and prepared for our local classrooms.”
Demand continues to grow, with the Education Program expanding to the College’s Winter Haven Campus this semester.
“Polk State has everything that I appreciate in life — the hometown feel, and the connections between professors and students.
“I truly consider my job at Polk State the ‘cherry on top’ of my career,” Scharff said.
‘The more we learn, the better we will teach’
For Scharff, achieving her doctorate was always in the plan, as she cheered on her mother in receiving her doctorate in 2007.
“I knew I wanted to do it, but — well life,” she said.
In 2021, her eldest son was in college himself, “and by 2023 when I start my dissertation – because I’m a planner – he would be finished with college so I wouldn’t have a lot of that mom guilt.”
Inspired by the children she helped to read during her 11 years in Polk County Public Schools, Scharff pursued her Doctorate in Education with concentrations in Curriculum and Instruction. Her dissertation focused on literacy.
“Without literacy skills, life will always be a struggle. Opening the world of literacy allows their lives to open up,” she said. “I witnessed a large number of students in the classroom with reading difficulties and want to help.”
In studying the self-efficacy of elementary teachers in differentiating instruction for students with reading difficulties such as dyslexia, Scharff found that teachers are confident in their abilities to differentiate, but there are disparities depending on years in the classroom.
“As educational leaders, we should be thinking about professional development and how we provide that based on different points of time in our careers,” she summarized.
After some much-needed rest and reading all the books she’s added to her book list for the past three years, Scharff plans to conduct more research and aspires to publish her work.
“The more we learn, the better we will teach,” Scharff said. “My doctorate is a big accomplishment that can be accomplished by anyone. I tell my students, ‘Here is your example. Let’s go. I’ll support you.’”