Philosophy
Engagement Comes First
Engagement is as important as course content. Whatever the grade, course, or ability-level, it is my job to cultivate curiosity.
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Helping students accumulate knowledge for end-of year exams, is simply not enough. My goal is to produce students who enjoy my classes, ask thought-provoking questions, and frequently, to my delight, choose to pursue science in their university careers.
The choices I make are based on cultivating curiosity and the habit of asking "why?"
Student-Centered Inquiry
I prioritize investigations and activities where students have to solve a problem, sort through new information, and design solutions. Almost every day, in class, we start with some unknown information. Sometimes this takes the form of a card sort, a data set, or a new image. They spend time talking and thinking about it and pulling from what they know already. Then we debrief it.
In almost all cases, this makes up the core of my lesson; student almost always figure out the most important points themselves.
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My approach is to ask directing questions, to sort through misconceptions, to tie up loose ends, and to draw their attention to patterns. I want to coach them after they have done most of thinking themselves.
Telling a Compelling Story
Developing context is one of a teacher's most important jobs. Creating units that span the scale of biology, from biomolecules to larger processes, like digestion, is the most interesting way to grab student's attention. Cellular Transport is 200% more interesting in the context of the cardio-pulmonary systems, than by itself as a lone topic.
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Teaching with case studies is another one of my favorite ways to present material. In ESS and AP Environmental Science, I have developed units around a central case study or story. This provides a perfect opportunity to teach the skills surrounding reading case studies as well as many examples for them to draw from.
Lets Play
Students in my class are always doing something. Sometimes this involves Lego or clay, or 10-minutes skits, or side walk chalk. They create people-sized models of xylem and phloem and use them to discuss transpiration pull and translocation in plant vascular tissue.
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My students decorate cookies of the electron transport chain and develop skits explain blood clotting.
Giving high school students the chance to make something and the freedom to be creative, without worrying about the one correct answer, is very powerful. They know that I am not all knowing and that I am always learning new things along with them.
My students learn to accept mistakes, learn from them, and seek out new ideas. They are open to new learning, something that is fundamental to all scientific endeavors (and most other opportunities as well). I actively work on building risk-taking and resiliance in my students.
Science, For Real
One of my favorite things about being a high school teacher is watching a student mature into a scientist. Learning how to ask questions, develop and then problem-solve their way through an experiment is incredibly empowering.
One of the way I do this is by presenting a circuit of techniques and equipment they may wish to use and then giving them free reign to develop their own questions and methods.
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When things go wrong they have to problem solve and question their process. Learning that the majority of science does not go as planned and that unexpected data is neither good nor bad, is fundamentally what learning is about. Giving students the tools necessary to reflect on their work and learn from their mistakes is one of my most important jobs as a teacher.
Diversifying What We Know
The Nature of Science is that of cooperation. As new ideas in science develop they must stand on all previous scientific endeavors. More and more the importance of cooperation, international endeavors, and diversity have become important in my teaching.
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For far too long the scientific narrative has been owned by a very narrow group of people. In today's global and diverse context it is imperative that student's learn about a broader perspective.
For me this means, including all kinds of scientists and their discoveries when I teaching my classes. Along side posters of the many scientists required by the syllabus, I post posters of amazing women and POC who have been pioneers in their fields. I bring them up when we discuss their ideas.
I build case studies where a wider view of issues is evident, from indigenous peoples of the Amazon and Australia to people living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. I want students to hear voices that often very different their own, building empathy, understanding, and a sense of a wider world-wide community.
