The participant
has grown as a leader in science education
What: Before coming to the University of
Pennsylvania's MCE program, I had very little experience in any type of
educational leadership, let alone any chemistry leadership. When I was
filling out the program's application and I had to explain any
leadership roles that I have played in my own school, it was not a very
easy task. The Baseline
Evidence 1 is
my original essay to the program. I had done some developmental work on
chemistry PowerPoint presentations. I had spent time creating different
chemistry PowerPoints presentations. I had spent time creating
PowerPoints for each chapter in my chemistry textbook. These
PowerPoints were shown to members of my department and then they were
provided a copy of my PowerPoint presentations. I was not sure if they
wanted the presentations to actual use in their own classrooms versus
using my templates and making adjustments to fix their own specific
needs. No matter what purpose they served to my department members, I
did not really do what I would considered a valuable professional
development for my department members as much as I did them a service,
which could have made their teaching lives a little easier. As I type
this explanation of what I did in the past, I think a stronger
leadership role would have to teach them how I developed my
presentations and showed them different ideas that I created and how I
used them in my own classroom.
How: As I have been spending time in
the MCE program, I have been taught by the program how to develop
better projects for teachers in the field of chemistry. I have also
been shown how to present these ideas to fellow teachers which would
also be beneifical in their own classrooms. My Group and I
which are all chemistry teachers tried to come up with a topic that we
all used in our own teaching but felt needed improvements. As all
educators we felt together we could develop new and improved
techniques. Once we developed our on techniques we could then show our
classmates how to use these same techniques in their classrooms. My group members and I realized
that students of today need different tools of learning abstract
concepts in the world of chemistry and demonstrations is one tool that
would help this feat but is not nearly used enough in chemistry
classrooms. This is why our group decided to put together not only a
detailed list of
demonstrations but to add a theory section into our
demonstration write-up. We also decided performing the demonstrations,
explaining how we used them in our own classrooms and showing how use
we used the theory we provided in the manual as a tool while performing
the actual demonstration is the most beneficial method of using
demonstrations in the classroom.
Why: We realized that a lot of
chemistry teachers use demonstrations in their classrooms but we also
believe that a lot of teachers don't use demonstrations in their
classrooms. We believe there are several reasons we teachers don't use
demonstrations such as: they are not very familiar with how to perform
demonstrations, how to relate demonstrations to actual chemistry theory
or they feel they don't have the proper materials to perform the actual
demonstrations. I selected this evidense to show how I have grown from
my initial leadership essay into a person who has developed a
professional development that many different teachers can now use in
their own classroom. Instead of just giving a teacher something they
might or might not use in their teaching, I developed a technique that
they can use in their classrooms and tried to address many issues that
they may come across when deciding to use demonstrations. I have grown
by expanding my thinking on not only how I could use a specific
educational tool but to how all kinds of different teachers could use
the same educational tool no matter if their educational setting are
the same as mine or completely different. I believe a lot of the issues
teachers have had with demonstrations have been addressed in our manual
and in our in class demonstrations.
Baseline Evidence 1: University
of Pennsylvania STI Application 2006, Leadership Roles Before Entering
Program
1) Developing a New Chemistry
Curriculum within My Own School- After teaching both chemistry 1
and chemistry 2, I realized there was not a standard outline on which
topics should be covered and in which order the topics should be
taught. Students seemed to have many different levels of chemistry
knowledge when leaving chemistry 1 and entering chemistry 2. I
developed an outline which was approved to used as the new method in
which topics should be covered in chemistry 1 and chemistry 2 so each
student was being introduced to the same material in the same courses.
I also helped develop an outline on which labs should be performed with
specific chemistry topics.
2) Creating PowerPoints for Each
Chapter in the Textbook- I spent time over a few years
developing a PowerPoint presentation to match each chapter in our
school's chemistry textbook.
3) Allowing College Students to
Observe My Classroom.- My administration has given me high
remarks when it comes to classroom management. They have asked me when
college students who are going to become future teachers come to
observe in our school would I mind if they were sent to my room to
observe how I manage my students. I was also asked to sit down with
these students and explain to them different techniques I use in
mananging my classroom and why I feel these techniques have been
successful for me.
