About Us
The New Mexico TSTM Essentials Team
Rebecca Sherry (she/her) is a Professional Learning Coordinator for PropelNM and is based in Albuquerque. She coordinates Propel’s TSTM Essentials, ELT, and IET Teams. She has worked for more than 20 years as an ESL instructor and program coordinator in urban and rural communities in New Mexico, Washington, and Texas. Her professional interests include curriculum design, integrated and contextualized ESL instruction in career pathways courses, online instruction, and, of course, supporting instructors. Rebecca has an MATESOL from the University of Washington. She enjoys spending time with family, sewing, and all things outdoors in her free time.
Contact Information
Email or Google Chat: rasherry@nmdelt.org
Meriah Lira is the ESL Instructional Coordinator at Clovis Community College and a Senior Consultant for NMDELT and TSTM Essentials. She has been in Adult Education for 10 years, and during this time has gained experience and knowledge in new technologies and instructional strategies. Meriah is Google Certified, has extensive knowledge and experience with traditional and online instruction, and curriculum design.
Contact Information
Email or Google Chat: mlira@nmdelt.org
As a consultant for Propel, Nina Bar-Giora is on the TSTM Essentials team and facilitates trainings for new IET instructors. She began as an HSE science instructor in 2021 and has since become an instructor in various IET courses at UNM-Taos while continuing to teach HSE classes. Arriving in New Mexico in 2018, Nina worked as a youth advocate in a northern New Mexico transitional housing program. Before that, Nina worked in place-based education in Philadelphia, PA (her hometown). She enjoys drawing upon her bachelors and masters work in science to help learners in health sciences career pathways, and to create engaging, contextualized HSE lessons. She loves gardening, DJing, and cats.
Contact Information
Email: nina.bg@nmdelt.org
All About TSTM Essentials
TSTM Essentials is an updated, highly interactive version of American Institutes for Research (AIR)’s national Teaching Skills That Matter training initiative, which we have redesigned especially for our programs in New Mexico. Our state was first invited to participate in AIR’s national TSTM Cohort Training in 2020-21, and an initial group of four instructors applied to join professional development lead Tina Hite and colleagues from across the country on an 8-month learning journey into the TSTM content, skills, approaches, and implementation. Upon successful completion, we were tasked to bring TSTM to New Mexico adult education.
Over the past few years, our New Mexico Team has found that the Nine Central Skills and the Three Instructional Approaches have been especially valued by our instructors. In 2024, the TSTM Essentials Team (Nina Bar-Giora, Bill Hladky, Meriah Lira, and Rebecca Sherry) incorporated our experiences and feedback from the field to completely redesign the delivery of these TSTM components so that each one is now a hands-on workshop. The workshops do not need to be completed sequentially, and they no longer need to be completed in a single semester. Instructional coaching provides optional, short-term practice and feedback on one component at a time immediately following the workshop. Although the TSTM Toolkit is still available to offer excellent example lesson plans, our Essentials goal is to work with you to seamlessly integrate TSTM components into your existing curriculum. We are excited to see your creativity!