About Me

I'm a chemistry teacher at Wheaton North High School. I like to think of myself as an analytical thinker and problem solver. Part of this is because, before getting into teaching, I worked for a couple years in the cosmetics industry as a chemist. When I realized I didn't want to do that forever, I pursued a Master's in Teaching to make the shift into the education field.

Problem Solving as a Teacher

There are always problems to solve. In teaching science, some of the problems include students who have low motivation and work ethic, students that don't really fully understand why they are not succeeding, students who don't even believe they can succeed in the first place, and grading systems that lead to students not realizing that learning is the actual goal of being in class every day. 

The New Guy

I'm also a new(er) teacher. This is my second full year of teaching. There's a lot of moving parts in teaching - keeping expectations high and holding students accountable, keeping track of grades for 120 students, creating labs and material for students to do in class, grading quizzes and other assignments, managing classroom behavior, collaborating with colleagues, meeting with administrators, and more. It's a lot to handle for a new teacher, and then you add on the task of completely redesigning your grading practices and procedures. 

Baby Steps

With so much going on in my classroom and in my head, I think it's wise to take small steps toward a large goal like standards based grading. I decided to only make the shift in one of the two classes I teach: regular-level chemistry. In addition, I'm breaking up SBG into a 2 Year Plan, spreading the work of changing everything over the course of two years.