My MEL Experiences

• Student/Teacher Relationships- My favorite teacher throughout High School was always my AP English & Literature teacher, Mr. Nielsen. He was always able to get the class involved no matter what topic we were focusing on. Throughout the class period he kept a positive attitude, and used his great sense of humor to add to the learning experience. Mr. Nielsen always made his students feel comfortable and always encouraged answers. He treated each one of us with respect, and also offered help outside of the classroom as much as possible, often coming to us outside of class to ask us how we were doing. Mr. Nielsen made a point to take an interest in our lives, asking us how our classes were going, and offering his time to help us prepare for our AP exams anytime we wanted. He even gave us the opportunity to discuss our grade and provide an argument as to why it should be raised, if we felt we weren’t being graded fairly; I took advantage of this opportunity only once. I met with Mr. Nielsen every day after school for a week as we went through the paper I had just written, which I felt deserved a better score. We picked the paper apart together, discussing why he graded it down, and why I felt the paper was valid. He ended up raising my grade on that paper by about 7 points. In the classroom, or outside of it, I always felt that I could approach him, and, many times, he encouraged all of his students to be involved and take advantage of all the services he offered in efforts to prepare us for our futures after High School. He wins the spot as my favorite teacher because, not only did he keep an active interest in our lives, but, throughout his classes, he was always able to keep me engaged in the learning process, as well as provide a comfortable atmosphere in which I was never afraid to share an answer. Whether it be right or wrong, we always worked through solutions together, figuring out exactly what made the right choice indeed the better answer. Many times I talked with him outside of class as he fed my blossoming thirst for knowledge, letting me borrow books from his personal collection, and helping me to prepare for my upcoming AP exams. It is for all these reasons and more that I feel that Mr. Nielsen represents an excellent example of a great student/teacher relationship.

• Helping Students Succeed- My senior year of High School, it seemed as though my life was completely crumbling down. I had so many deadlines that needed to be met in order to achieve my goals of attending UMF, and of someday becoming a High School Math Teacher. But coupled with all my academic deadlines, was a plethora of personal problems. As I was struggling through final projects, I was also struggling through depression, and struggling with problems at home. About halfway through my senior year I made a conscious decision to stop dealing with everything, and I mean everything. I no longer wanted to deal with all the daily pressures being applied to my life, and I was willing to sacrifice my future career in order to make all the stresses and pains stop. I began to turn in my homework under par, and, on occasion, skip the class period in general. My attention span was becoming utterly small, and I found myself no longer wanting to be in High School at all anymore. I still attended track practice each night, but my track coach could see that my enthusiasm was wavering. The moment he noticed this, a red flag shot up in his mind. He immediately scheduled me to have a talk with him during his free period. I have always been a great student, playing varsity sports, participating in various clubs and organizations, as well as graduating in the top 10% of my class, so of course my track coach knew something was wrong. Throughout the semester, I was also his teacher aide, so he saw me most of every day. He often encouraged me to bring my homework to his classes, so I could study during down time, between grading papers and helping with in-class activities. He also provided a comfortable environment in which I could talk to him, and also gave me the confidence to approach the guidance counselor with my problems. He helped show me that I had the ability to get through all “the tough stuff” and come out on top. He truly helped me succeed by providing me with extra time to do my homework, as well as many other outlets and resources to get the help I needed. I strongly believe the best teachers are always willing to take the time to encourage their students, helping to build on their strengths, and always willing to provide resources/outside help if necessary, which was the case for me personally. As a teacher, I hope to help my students succeed, just as my track coach/mentor helped me to succeed.

• Learning Styles- Throughout High School, one of my favorite classes was always chemistry, because Mrs. Johnson always provided a lot of variety in her teaching. She was very flexible on all her in- class activities, and gave us plenty of options. Some of the ways she appealed to the different learning styles was through teaching us chemistry related songs [Goggles, you’ll love your goggles...they will keep your eyes from *Burning Out*...], using the computers for several chemistry experiments throughout the year, allowing the students to correct one-another’s papers, lecturing to the class as a whole, using many different props and models in her explanations, as well as several other teaching methods. For the end of the year project, we had to pick a topic, research it thoroughly, come up with a hypothesis to test, then present the results to the class any way we chose. She always encouraged us to complete assignments with as little or as much creativity as we wanted/were comfortable with. For the final project, we had to choose two visuals to help explain our hypothesis and results with, along with our hand-outs. As my two visuals, I chose a standard poster and an interpretive dance about the dissociation of particles in water. My teacher and classmates loved it, as they had never seen anything like it. I never thought that I would ever create an interpretive dance, nor did I ever think I had the confidence to perform one, but Mrs. Johnson always encouraged us, as students, and always provided us with a comfortable learning environment. That is an experience I will never forget. Mrs. Johnson, throughout her classes, appealed to our various learning styles, allowing all of us an equal chance to learn the material. In High School, I always considered her to be a bit strange, but in retrospect, it was her personality quirks that appealed to us, and kept us interested in her class. Throughout my future teaching career, I can only strive to be as engaging a teacher she always was and still is.

• Autonomy- At Dirigo High, Ms. Fletcher is known amongst the student body as one of the strictest teachers that ever there was. During class sign-up days students would whisper such things to each other in hopes to steer them away from a Fletcher course. The truth, however, is that Ms. Fletcher is one of the best teachers Dirigo High has to offer. Though she can appear to be unfriendly at times, you can guarantee all of her students learn the material. In High School, she taught my Honors’ Biology and Honors’ Physics courses. She always puts down exactly what she expects from us on the first day of class: assignments will not be accepted late, period; no grammatical errors of any kind; all labs will be written as formal lab reports; etc. Every assignment had a specific due date. For me, that really helps me to get on track and get my work done. If I know my science homework is due Monday with no exceptions, I’m going to make sure it gets done long before Monday. All lab reports/projects had a series of due dates when certain parts were due. This also helped me to pace things out along the course of the project, making sure each section was completed at its appropriate time. I have had several teachers who assign work without giving due dates. When this happens, I always think to myself ‘I’ll do it tomorrow because I have plenty of time.’ Then, of course, the due date is finally set as 'the following day' because ‘We should have been working on the assignment the whole time,’ which leads to a lot of rushing on my part to get the work done. Teachers who keep a syllabus of when assignments are due, or make due dates clear upon assigning homework, work the best. They let the student know exactly what is expected of them and, when giving them time to pace themselves, do a better job on the assignment than if they had to rush at last minute.

• Context- As a math major, I always love to find new connections between what I’m studying, and how it affects me in daily life. And while I was in High School, I had a math teacher who made it a point to always make such connections. Throughout my Algebra courses, I always hated word problems, or ‘applications’. I already knew how algebra was integrated into daily life, and would have been much happier just solving equations. By the time I made my way into calculus my senior year, however, I needed more than a little help. Applications became my new best friend as I struggled to put all the things I was learning into a context that would help me understand. My calculus teacher would repeatedly bring us examples from real life situations in which we could use calculus to solve the problem; examples ranged from how to figure out the rates of shadows, to what time two boats would collide in the ocean, and many other topics. Without his perspective, Calculus would have been a lot harder for me, and I am glad that applications were brought back into my learning experience. I strongly believe that when a new concept is introduced, it should always be related to something the students deal with, or something that could happen in a real life situation. Giving the students a way to relate to the subject sparks their interest, helping them to pay more attention to the topic at hand, and eventually to learn the new material. As a math teacher, I will be constantly searching for new ways to bring math alive in the classroom, as well as to put it into context outside the classroom, in an effort to give my students the best learning experience possible.