About Me
If you've ever watched a swallow fly, you will understand my approach to teaching. As hawkers, swallows are always working to catch insects on the fly. But if if you watch closely, a swallow will spend that time blissfully swooping and diving in elegant aerial acrobatics... and they're having a blast!
Science Education is my passion and I've spent my career working to develop high level project based learning experiences which scaffold structured, guided and open inquiry strategies. The important qualities I work to integrate are authentic scientific research, biotechnology applications, quantitative data analysis, and technical reading and writing strategies... and I have an absolute blast doing it!
Where I teach
In 2003, the North Central High School Institute of Science and Technology (IST) began as a single elective science class that gave students an opportunity to participate in science research projects designed by the teacher. In 2012, the program grew from one elective science class to three elective Career and Technical Education classes (CTE) classes. The shift from a science to CTE course reframed some of the major objectives of the courses. Whereas in traditional science classes the science content is the focus, in our classes the development and application of skills is the focus. In the first two levels of our program, students engage in guided inquiry investigations in order to learn biotechnology techniques and skills. In the 3rd level of the program students design their own molecular biology research project using the skills they have learned in previous classes in order to gather data.