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Early Workflow Success
After teaching physics for a year, I had a general sense of the pacing and frustration with not figuring out students’ misconceptions early. An incorrect assumption in math and science travels with you and makes further understanding more and more difficult. I tried giving more homework, but grading would backlog and I still had the…
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Year One, Honors Precalc
Out of college, I applied to the Bentley school to teach. A new high school, about to go into its fourth year and it needed a physics teacher. I did not get that job (though I would a year later) In early August, they suddenly had a math opening. I called them up, and explained…
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How I ended up in education
As a child, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. The best I could come up with was to be an inventor. I was fascinated with how everything worked and wanted to understand it all from machines to how people interacted with each other. In my childhood, I moved every…
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todo Core Teaching Philsophy
Engage Empower Wonder Joy
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Learning Styles are a Myth
Statements like these require more precision. Saying learning styles is a myth is not saying that some people are better than others in different types of thinking (auditory, visual, etc). What it is refuting is that catering to students learning strengths for a particular topic improves outcomes. It turns out that catering the type of…
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Early Teaching Philosophy [2004-05]
In my final year at Bentley, I was invited to give the convocation speech and the class charge at graduation. Below are the two speeches as written (I went a bit off book in the actual delivery). Interestingly, these speeches went through administrative review and were deemed absolutely appropriate. Reading them nearly 20 years later,…
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Straw Stretch Lab
This lab was a response to students relying on teacher expertise too much. I was confident that the students had enough background to figure out the assignment and since it was hands-on, they had feedback from the instrument that they were building. Interestingly, this also produced novel designs for the instrument from pan-pipes (the intended)…
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Early EPS
Involving students in making the classroom a better place. This was 2005-06 Scientific Thinking 3. This proposal was generated through a class discussion and this document was the follow-up. I have always found success in being upfront with students surrounding the learning environment that is the most enjoyable. When it is off the rails, it…