Hometown: Princeton Junction, NJ
Undergraduate School: Gettysburg College (B.S. in Biology, Chemistry minor)
Graduate School: University of Pennsylvania (M.S. Ed. Expected May 2013)
Extracurricular Activities and Hobbies: Playing cello, basketball, singing
Previous Jobs/Internships: Assistant Medical Writer, Intern at a Neurology Department in Bispebjerg Hospital, Tour guide at Gettysburg College, Peer Learning Associate for Biology 112 classes and labs at Gettysburg College, Trips Counselor at Adirondack Camp
Biography:
People always give me funny looks when they hear that I was a biology major but I do not want to become a doctor or do research. As if they’re thinking, “Are you crazy? Why are you wasting your time?” Then I tell them that originally I did want to be a doctor and do research; I tried volunteering at hospitals, working in laboratories, and doing research, but none of those made me feel that zing that makes you bound out of bed each morning…until I started teaching.
I started out by helping out my friends figure out what their science textbooks were telling them. This led to land a job as a teaching assistant for an introductory-level biology lab and lecture at Gettysburg College, which is when I took off. I came home every day raving about my students and what they had learned, and I was over the moon when they got their good test grades back almost as if they were my own test grades. This made me think back to why I love biology, and it all came down to my own 9th grade biology teacher.
Ms. Shu is why I study and love biology. I fell in love with biology after her examples of the glucose in Wonderbread to teach cellular respiration and because of the individual research projects we did on genetic mutations. When it dawned on me that I wanted to teach in a classroom, I went back to high school and shadowed my old science teacher, and that’s when I realized that I did not want to work with college students, who already know that they like biology, but that I would like to be like Ms. Shu, and light the fire in students who maybe have not been exposed to biology before.
Now I am in the process of completing my student teaching, and I’m having the time of my life. One of my favorite things to do has been to come up with creative ways to differentiate the way I teach key concepts. I am fascinated by the different ways that students learn, and I am always trying to come up with new ways to teach the material in ways that reach most of them. For example, this upcoming week, I am teaching mitosis in biology, and as one of my activities, I am going to have some students be chromosomes, and demonstrate the different stages.
It has been my experience that too many people teach science because it is a back-up job: they didn’t get into medical school, or they couldn’t find any jobs at local laboratories. I, however, want to be a science
teacher because this is what I love to do. I would like to continue pursuing this passion of working with kids and showing them that science is not just a bunch of figures in a textbook, but a way of seeing and shaping the world. These past couple of months as a student teacher have been amazing: being with students every day, teaching them how to think like scientists, and seeing those light bulbs struggling to turn on is simply the best, and I cannot wait to start my own career as an educator.
Undergraduate School: Gettysburg College (B.S. in Biology, Chemistry minor)
Graduate School: University of Pennsylvania (M.S. Ed. Expected May 2013)
Extracurricular Activities and Hobbies: Playing cello, basketball, singing
Previous Jobs/Internships: Assistant Medical Writer, Intern at a Neurology Department in Bispebjerg Hospital, Tour guide at Gettysburg College, Peer Learning Associate for Biology 112 classes and labs at Gettysburg College, Trips Counselor at Adirondack Camp
Biography:
People always give me funny looks when they hear that I was a biology major but I do not want to become a doctor or do research. As if they’re thinking, “Are you crazy? Why are you wasting your time?” Then I tell them that originally I did want to be a doctor and do research; I tried volunteering at hospitals, working in laboratories, and doing research, but none of those made me feel that zing that makes you bound out of bed each morning…until I started teaching.
I started out by helping out my friends figure out what their science textbooks were telling them. This led to land a job as a teaching assistant for an introductory-level biology lab and lecture at Gettysburg College, which is when I took off. I came home every day raving about my students and what they had learned, and I was over the moon when they got their good test grades back almost as if they were my own test grades. This made me think back to why I love biology, and it all came down to my own 9th grade biology teacher.
Ms. Shu is why I study and love biology. I fell in love with biology after her examples of the glucose in Wonderbread to teach cellular respiration and because of the individual research projects we did on genetic mutations. When it dawned on me that I wanted to teach in a classroom, I went back to high school and shadowed my old science teacher, and that’s when I realized that I did not want to work with college students, who already know that they like biology, but that I would like to be like Ms. Shu, and light the fire in students who maybe have not been exposed to biology before.
Now I am in the process of completing my student teaching, and I’m having the time of my life. One of my favorite things to do has been to come up with creative ways to differentiate the way I teach key concepts. I am fascinated by the different ways that students learn, and I am always trying to come up with new ways to teach the material in ways that reach most of them. For example, this upcoming week, I am teaching mitosis in biology, and as one of my activities, I am going to have some students be chromosomes, and demonstrate the different stages.
It has been my experience that too many people teach science because it is a back-up job: they didn’t get into medical school, or they couldn’t find any jobs at local laboratories. I, however, want to be a science
teacher because this is what I love to do. I would like to continue pursuing this passion of working with kids and showing them that science is not just a bunch of figures in a textbook, but a way of seeing and shaping the world. These past couple of months as a student teacher have been amazing: being with students every day, teaching them how to think like scientists, and seeing those light bulbs struggling to turn on is simply the best, and I cannot wait to start my own career as an educator.