My name is Brooke and I have been a high school science teacher since 2015.

Life is organized chaos by brooke

I’ve had the pleasure of teaching Physical Science, Earth Space Science, Chemistry Honors, Regular and Advanced Placement. I’m not saying I’m the best out there, because boy are there some fantastic teachers, but I do well in my classroom and at my school.  I am the lead teaching in my professional learning community and serve on the Instructional Leadership Team at my school.  This is a fancy way for saying I help create and present different teaching techniques to fellow teachers.  I keep asking, what’s next in my career progression. I know administration is not my path so here I am trekking an unconventional one.  A blog about teaching ideals, strategies, but mostly teaching secondary science, mainly chemistry (I’ll touch on regular, honors and AP).

Teaching chemistry can be a daunting task. 

Teaching chemistry can be downright scary, especially for new teachers.

Many teachers, like me, eased their way into chemistry from a softer science like Physical Science or Earth Space Science. Don’t get me wrong, these subjects have the potential for a vast amount of rigor, but in my school district, the curriculum was written to be less challenging (aka it was to help many students earn their third science credit so they could graduate).   Some people take the plunge into teaching starting with a few chemistry classes.  Either way, my goal is to make your life easier.

 Through this blog, I will lay out my teaching strategies, ideals, recommendations and materials I use in my science classroom.  I will share my opinions and advice and you can pick and choose which tasty morsels to take with you. Some of the materials I use are made by yours truly and can be purchased through my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Other materials are things I’ve found online or through TPT that I think add value to my lesson plans.  I will be forthcoming when I profit off a purchase or not. There are a lot of great free products and ideas out there, and I’d love to help you find them.

I did not go to university for education. 

GASP. Its common in the states for many teachers to be career switchers.  This fact could take me a down a HUGE rabbit hole that includes me ranting about pay, supply/demand, and the United States and its universal ranking in education but this is a space about teaching and chemistry, I’ll leave my soap box at home.  Instead, I went to the University of South Florida for a bachelor’s degree and somehow decided to earn a degree in Environmental Sciences. To transition into teaching in the state of Florida, a candidate has to take the general education (writing, reading, and math) tests and then their subject matter test.  When all tests are passed, a candidate is eligible for a teaching certificate!

I attended an accelerated teacher program

However, it was highly recommended to either get a master’s degree in education or do a bootcamp type course to prep for teaching.  I chose our community college’s Educator Preparation Institute (EPI) mainly because it was cost effective and more importantly to me, it was quicker. If I am being really honest, I do not think EPI was geared toward high school teachers. In fact, if I were to go back to EPI with an instructional design eye, I would probably encourage more student centered lessons and actually break down the way to lesson plan and discuss how discipline works in a secondary classroom.  In fact, the teacher who taught classroom management didn’t think to mention about school wide policy or what is actually feasible with real life teenagers, instead he just said “don’t sleep with your students.” No, I’m not kidding.  

You’ll see that later when I talk about my own classroom, I will drop tips and tricks that I have used with success.  This is what worked for me, my classroom and my teaching style and truthfully, it may or may not work for you. Let’s hope for the former.

My classroom may look different from yours and that’s okay.

A teacher’s classroom is a reflection upon them and their personal style.

Before we continue, my main philosophy about my classroom is that the student is the one who should be in control of the learning, and the teacher should facilitate.

Why am I sharing all of this?  Well, because I had a lot of misconceptions, many that were instilled in a program designed to prepare teachers. If I can help one other person be a better teacher, then my mission is accomplished.

How will I aid other chemistry teachers? 

I will post weekly about chemistry content, my delivery strategies, teaching philosophy or all three combined. Which one will it be next week? It’s a mystery!  

Chemistry is a fascinating and dynamic subject that explores the nature and properties of matter and the transformations that occur in the natural world. I believe that a teacher has to make a meaningful connection with their students before significant learning. In the first few posts, I will talk about my introductory week, how to establish your teaching style and classroom management plan. Then we’ll gradually get to the good stuff, the chemistry.

One of the most exciting thoughts as a chemistry teacher, is your role in educating and inspiring the next generation of scientists, innovators, and problem solvers.

Would you like to join the community and receive notifications for exclusive chemistry content? Join the email list here.

I am excited to get to work with you!

Happy Teaching,

B