My name is Mr. Blanchard. I spent the first ten years of my career teaching 6th grade at Ingersoll Middle School. During my time, I taught Language Arts, Social Studies, and Math. In the summer of 2016, I was given the opportunity to begin teaching STEM and IMS. The first year, I taught 5th graders some basic computing skills and 6th and 7th graders Scratch coding with the expectation that I would become a Project Lead the Way (PLTW) teacher the following year.
During the summer of 2017, I was trained in PLTW Design and Modeling (DM) and Automation and Robotics (AR). In the 2017-2018 school year, I taught 5th graders using Lego Education, 6th and 7th graders DM, and 8th graders AR in our school's newly assembled STEM Lab.
During the summer of 2018, I was trained in PLTW Computer Science for Innovators and Makers (CSIM). During the 2018-2019 school year, I am teaching 5th graders Scratch, 6th graders DM, 7th graders CSIM, and 8th graders AR.
I am extremely excited to be providing my students STEM classes. Just as many of my students' parents have said, "I wish they had this when I was in school." It was been a wonderful opportunity to have my students reach outside of their comfort zone to build projects that they did not even know was possible.