Hello!

My name is Mrs Campbell. I am looking forward to being your science teacher this year. Science is my FAVORITE subject. This year will be new, challenging, and most of all exciting! As I will grow to know you, my students, here are a few items about me I wanted to share. I graduated from William Jessup University with a degree in Biology, a minor in Visual Arts and a minor in American Sign Language. I am in the process of completing my Teaching credential program and my Masters program (so guess what... I am a student too!)

This year is my first year teaching in my own classroom. So what kind of teacher am I? As a teacher, I have teaching styles and methods that I believe will help my students to understand the concepts I will be teaching. In my own educational journey, I have had the privilege of being taught by many types of teachers. As a student, I often had to adapt to the different styles of teaching each of these teachers had and restructure my way of learning. This can be hard for students who are already faced with many challenges. My first goal as a teacher is to always put my students first! My hope is to get to know my students’ learning styles and teach in a way that supports them and not just a teaching style that I am comfortable with. That philosophy is one of the reasons that I really enjoy using stations, especially in science, to allow students to experience learning in different formats such as: reading scientific articles, practicing experiments, building models, engaging in class discussions, and creating visual representations of the concept.

My second goal, as a teacher, is to encourage curiosity. Science is the best subject to inspire students to be curious! In my classroom, I plan on using the teaching strategy called “Phenomenon-based Learning”. Phenomenon-based learning gives students real world situations and has them dissect these situations to understand what is happening and the processes that go into creating that situation. For example, to teach Photosynthesis, I could give students a plant and have them observe it. The students would try to form hypotheses that try to explain how a plant survives. As a class, the students and I would begin the journey of figuring out through research, studying, and experiments just how the plant lives.

As you can see, my teaching philosophy could be summarized by saying that all students are unique. Each student learns in their own way and comprehends concepts differently. Students should be encouraged to accept their different educational journeys and not be judged on their ability to succeed in every situation. I provide my students with many different avenues to express their comprehension while also preparing them for standardized testing and educational experiences they may encounter in the future. A confident student can accomplish much more than one who does believe in themselves. My goal as a teacher is to inspire, encourage, and stimulate students so they can be confident in life and learning.