I have taught physics for 28 years, all at one urban public school near Cleveland, OH. Early in my career, I was lucky enough to have great mentors from local universities and professional organizations help me learn how to put students in position to build ideas rather than repeat what I told them. I was considered an excellent teacher, but I knew something was missing and I could be better. I had wanted to learn about Modeling Instruction but never made the time to travel in the summer to take a workshop. So when the first Modeling workshop came to Cleveland in 2015, I signed up right away. From the first day of my workshop with my longtime mentor Holly McTernan and Jess Dykes, I knew that Modeling Instruction gave me the missing piece to my teaching: a clear structure for how to make meaningful student discourse the default rather than an option. Since then, I have taken 3 more workshops as a participant, hosted 3 workshops, and facilitated many workshops both in person and online. I love learning from others and I love helping others learn, both in my high school and when I’m sharing my understanding of Modeling Instruction with peers. My network of modeler peers pushes me to always better myself. Since I’ve been modeling, I was also the 2019 awardee from Ohio for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

I think some of my strongest skills or traits are also the ones that are most annoying to my students: I am slow and contemplative, and I persist in asking questions that push people to consider alternate perspectives. I think these are essential skills for somebody to have in any organization that has important decisions to make. I have worked very hard at and am very proud of my intentional development of my questioning skills, both in and out of the classroom, and the most essential part of questioning is to really listen. In and out of the classroom, I excel at identifying and asking the hard questions that people need to hear.

I also have worked very hard at making my classroom a space that communicates that every one of my students belongs in the room and needs to be heard every bit as much as everyone else. I have worked extensively with the STEP UP community as an Advocate and curriculum developer to help other teachers learn tools for building community and classroom cultures that value each person as they are. I am eager to help AMTA expand its tools for helping teachers develop strong classroom cultures just as AMTA has tools for helping teachers develop strong content learning.