Mrs. Amber Dixon's

Google Site

Social Studies

Winter/Spring 2020 Courses

1st Hour 7:40-8:30 Seminar
2nd Hour 8:35-9:25 HONORS Economics
3rd Hour 9:30-10:20 Comparative World Religions
4th Hour 10:25-11:17 PLANNING, Come in for Help or Retakes
5th Hour 11:22-12:12 HONORS Economics

2nd Lunch 12:17-12:47

6th Hour 12:52-1:43 HONORS Economics
7th Hour 1:48-2:40 IB 20th Century World History

Tardies will be marked as soon as the bell rings. This means you must be in the room AND READY TO WORK. So be sure to use your HUSKIE PRIDE and be PROUD of your work, and take that INITIATIVE and be ENGAGED and PREPARED and RESPONSIBLE to work AS SOON AS if not BEFORE the bell rings so we can be DETERMINED and ENGAGED to learn to the best of our ability all hour long!

Contact Information

Mrs. Amber Dixon

Room 2.132

Email adixon@portageps.org - I try to answer emails within 24 hours. Email is the fastest way to reach me as I am often working with students, grading, or planning during my planning hour.

Class Phone 269.323.5442

All of my students are also connected to my Google Classroom. If parents want to be connected to that and receive a weekly summary of the small amount that is sent out on Google Classroom, please send me an email.

Evaluation:

A basic note about evaluation (see the course syllabus-in Welcome/Intro for each course) for more info). Students grades are by category. When it is on Skyward you will see 2 categories, Classwork for 30% and Assessments for 70%.

Skyward:

I highly encourage my students and parents/guardians to actively engage in using the SKYWARD system to keep up to date not only on their grades but because I use it as a planning tool to see what assignments, quizzes, and tests are coming up. I also tend to write notes with assignments to help students and families see what is going on with lower grades. These notes, however, are only viewable on the desktop version of Skyward, NOT on the mobile app version, thus a full explanation of your grade may be needed by viewing the desktop version or contacting the teacher.

If you have any questions about assignments, please contact me, or need help with the system you can always email help@portageps.org.

About Mrs. Dixon

PROFESSIONAL:

I graduated from Western Michigan University's School of Education with a BA in Political Science in 1999 and began teaching in 1999 as a permanent substitute at Paw Paw High School. My family then moved to the eastside of the state where I taught for 3 years at Oak Park High School a mile north of Detroit. We moved back to the westside after my husband and I had our second child. In the spring of 2003 I was permanent substitute at Parchment High School due to the War in Iraq starting. Then I began here at Portage Northern High School in the fall of 2003 part-time and the next fall it became full-time at both PN and PC. In 2004 I was full-time in this classroom I'm in now - though it looked a bit different, smaller, flipped, door on the other side of the room, no air conditioning, I even had a VCR back then, lots of changes. In 2007 I earned my Masters Degree in Educational Leadership in Curriculum.

FAMILY:

My husband and I have been together since 1996, married in 2000, and have 2 sons. My husband graduated from KAMSC and WMU and took on a big challenge of changing careers in his 30's. He has been working at Firekeepers since they opened in 2009 and is now a pitboss. Our oldest son graduated from Portage Northern in 2016 and was a star in the school theater, musical, and forensics program and is pursuing music in college at Western Michigan University, KVCC, and an online associates (free as a child of an MEA member!) and with the goal of going back to WMU for a teaching degree! My youngest son is also a Huskie and will be graduating in 2021. I love my boys and am a very proud wife and mom. I also have 3 younger sisters - all AM names, 2 step sisters, 7 nephews and 2 nieces, and a relative who works in this building.

I started running in April of 2016, just because it was spring break and we weren't going anywhere, so why not do something. I have run a race nearly every month since June of 2016 including multiple super sprint tris, sprint triathlons, swam relay triathlons (a sprint and an Olympic), swam a 5K, 4 half marathons, 10K's and a lot of 5Ks. In September of 2017 I ran my first Ragnar 200-ish mile 12-person relay, and in May of 2018 horribly sprained my ankle running my second Ragnar Trail in Kentucky. But everyone stumbles sometimes. But I did swim in several relays and swam a 5K race (Swim to the Moon!).

It takes us time to get back to where we want to be and in December of 2018 I started Couch to 10K program and ran my 2 10K races in the spring of 2019 since my injury and started triathlon training in May of 2019 for a summer filled with training, friends, and completed 2 more triathlon races in the summer of 2019!

WHAT SHOULD I KNOW ABOUT YOU?

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