Melanie Yau is a Chemistry teacher at King College Prep High School in Chicago, IL. In 2015, she became a National Certified Teacher in Adolescence and Young Adulthood Science. Outside of the classroom, she likes to find money on the ground, do hot yoga, read, and take naps. She thinks elephants are pretty cool.
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#WordsofWisdom
#MSUrbanSTEM #wordsofwisdom pic.twitter.com/ZAR7lr45RY
— Melanie Yau (@mmyau1) May 14, 2016
5 Year Plan/Looking Forward
My long-term goal in science teaching is to have my students act and think like scientists and to work with my colleagues to ensure students are challenged similarity in other science classes. My definition thinking and acting like a scientist is collaborating with each other to collect and analyze data to make informed decisions to create solutions or alternatives to current problems or inadequacies. I envision students having more opportunities to question, explore, and apply scientific concepts. My short-term goal is to improve student learning through collaboration. I will work with my department team to modify our current lab activities to include more challenging questions to encourage discussion and foster collaboration within lab groups.
I’m not anticipating much change happening within the school system, but instead, anticipating change in the expectations of our future generations in post-secondary pathways. My job will be to prepare students to be successful students in postsecondary education and contributing members to the society. It has been stated many times that we are “training” and educating students for jobs that do not even exist now, so how can we begin to prepare these students to enter the workfield? I believe the way we do that is to teach the skills and habits of the mind that transcend the content knowledge so they can adapt with the evolving work environment. This relates to my goals stated because if my students have learned and experienced how to think and act like a scientist, they will be prepared to work with others and evaluate or create new products.
One of my goals is to collaborate more with my colleagues to develop lessons that will develop their scientific “state-of-mind.” I currently collaborate with my department team; I would like to be more deliberate about working with colleagues from other departments. Within my current network, I have teachers from different departments, school, and teach various grade levels. Most of these teachers are within my school, but as I participate in more professional development (including MSUrbanSTEM), I have had the opportunity to meet and work with those outside of my school and content area. Another area of diversity is the teaching personalities within my network. I find that observing and collaborating with teacher who have differing teaching styles gives me more ideas about how to teach and design units/lessons. To increase the diversity measure of my network, I would like to include more science professionals (to learn more about what is expected in the science field) and those who have different teaching styles (to learn and implement other best practices and techniques).
One way I can (maybe) be courageous enough to abandon the past is my rigid schedule for units. By having a schedule, it eases my mind because I know what I have to look forward to and plan. However, if I want to allow students more time to think and act like scientists, it could take more time because of where student question and discussion can take us. Also, if I have a less rigid schedule, I can plan new projects or units with other colleagues and integrate other disciplines.
I’m not anticipating much change happening within the school system, but instead, anticipating change in the expectations of our future generations in post-secondary pathways. My job will be to prepare students to be successful students in postsecondary education and contributing members to the society. It has been stated many times that we are “training” and educating students for jobs that do not even exist now, so how can we begin to prepare these students to enter the workfield? I believe the way we do that is to teach the skills and habits of the mind that transcend the content knowledge so they can adapt with the evolving work environment. This relates to my goals stated because if my students have learned and experienced how to think and act like a scientist, they will be prepared to work with others and evaluate or create new products.
One of my goals is to collaborate more with my colleagues to develop lessons that will develop their scientific “state-of-mind.” I currently collaborate with my department team; I would like to be more deliberate about working with colleagues from other departments. Within my current network, I have teachers from different departments, school, and teach various grade levels. Most of these teachers are within my school, but as I participate in more professional development (including MSUrbanSTEM), I have had the opportunity to meet and work with those outside of my school and content area. Another area of diversity is the teaching personalities within my network. I find that observing and collaborating with teacher who have differing teaching styles gives me more ideas about how to teach and design units/lessons. To increase the diversity measure of my network, I would like to include more science professionals (to learn more about what is expected in the science field) and those who have different teaching styles (to learn and implement other best practices and techniques).
One way I can (maybe) be courageous enough to abandon the past is my rigid schedule for units. By having a schedule, it eases my mind because I know what I have to look forward to and plan. However, if I want to allow students more time to think and act like scientists, it could take more time because of where student question and discussion can take us. Also, if I have a less rigid schedule, I can plan new projects or units with other colleagues and integrate other disciplines.
Resources for implementing ImagineIT 2.0 (goal of having students acting, thinking, and communicating like scientists, with a focus on collaboration), creating a personal learning network (PLN), and funding opportunities.
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Digital Presence/Absence I learned there are a lot of other Melanie Yaus out there from a quick Google search. Under the “All” tab, about 2 out of 10 of the links actually refer to me. In the “Images” section, the first few pictures are of me or posted by me on my social media accounts (Twitter and Google profile). Most of the links I found through the Google search are related to me being at teacher at King College Prep (education, position, and salary) or personal information (home address and phone number). It is surprising how much you can find about anyone on the Internet, even those who try to stay under the radar, like me. Another thing that surprised me is the lack of “complaints” from students on teacher rating sites, but only because I remember that being a huge thing when I was in high school and college. At the moment, I do not care to change anything; I would like to stay mysterious and elusive until I feel my teaching and learning can improve through my digital presence.
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SummerI started the MSUrbanSTEM journey with an 11-day intensive summer institute. Learning to put together a website and sign up for Twitter was just the beginning...
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ImagineITThrough MSUrbanSTEM, I finally had the motivation, support, and place to explore my teaching and learning. See my progress over the year.
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Ultimate STEMThe MSUrbanSTEM team two wrote a book in 11 days...that's crazy.
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