Be a flower bed, not a machine.
Hello, how are you doing? This is how I like to start my classes. I understand that students come with expectations, events, and reasons to be excited, anxious, or angry as they enter the classroom. Therefore, I think it is essential that a classroom is a safe place that sees them and recognizes the often messy, exciting, and unruly intersections of their personal and academic lives. As a service provider, I will do my best to guide them through their chemistry education, so they feel engaged and fortified regardless of gender, orientation, or race. My classroom is a safe space for students' identities and the risk required to ask essential questions about themselves, chemistry, and our world in a student-centered environment so they can flourish as individuals.
“Being Clear is Kind” and “All Means All”
I will use the Next Generation Science Standards to guide students toward meeting rigorous standards and preparing for college and career readiness. I celebrate students' questions as a tool for guidance toward a greater understanding. I will strive to provide STEM education that is student-centered and useful as a tool to deal with real-world problems.
Each student must be allowed to access a curriculum that will guide them toward meeting the rigorous content standards of the classroom. Therefore, I employ a variety of developmentally and ability-appropriate instructional strategies, resources, and assistive technology, including principles of Universal Design of Learning (UDL) and Multi-tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS) (TPE 1.4).
Learning for the sake of doing.
Students and graduates alike often have the same criticism about science class. They think and discuss, "how is this relevant to me? Why are we doing this? Will I ever use this?" It’s a tricky question to answer for many educators, or an easy one if all you can think to say is, "it's so you can go to college and get a good job." However, I believe students ask these questions because they want to feel the material is purposeful.
Suppose students are learning chemistry to address climate change and pollution's chemical effects on their community's drinking water, soil, air, or food. In that case, I can tell these students that they are doing chemistry to make the world a better place! I can hold up a mirror and show them that they are working to become the changemakers the world so badly needs.