Dr. Linda Tanini is a biology and biotechnology teacher at Chelmsford High School, in Chelmsford, MA. She received a B.S. degree in Biology from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell in 1998, a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Boston College in 2006, and a M.Ed. degree in Secondary Education from Boston College in 2007. Her teaching career spans 17 years, including positions at Methuen High School and Chelmsford High School, in addition to other area colleges.

Dr. Tanini is a lifelong learner with extensive professional development experience as she participates regularly in programming offered by Harvard University Life Science Outreach and is a contributor for LabXchange, and on-line science education resource offered by Harvard University. Dr. Tanini also brings a global perspective to her work, participating in the Fulbright Teachers for Global Classroom program, and has worked with teachers from Ghana.

My role as a biology teacher is more than just teaching concepts. I use current skills and techniques to shape my instruction so my students will be workforce ready when leaving my classroom. For me, it isn’t important if every student remembers every detail of biology. It is most important that every student experiences a part of all the different pathways that are available to them to be successful in their lives.

Born and raised in New Jersey, I attended TCNJ for my undergraduate education, earning a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Secondary Education. After teaching for a few years, I pursued my Masters of Science in Biology for Educators at Washington University in St. Louis. The program strengthened my instruction through hands-on and researched-based pedagogical strategies and immersive laboratory experiences. Currently I teach AP Biology, Human Anatomy & Physiology, and Honors Biology. Over my career I have also had the opportunity to teach Environmental Science. I have been a member of the Biology Teachers Association of New Jersey (BTANJ) since graduation, of which I am currently the Secretary and Special Projects Coordinator. I have continued to take graduate classes to further improve my craft. Most recently, I completed the Supervisor Endorsement Program at Rutgers University.

If there is one thing that has been made clear over the past 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that science literacy is critical for public health. As a science teacher, I feel it is my responsibility to ensure that students in my classes not only recognize the importance of science, but also feel equipped to research, analyze, and share accurate information with family and friends. It is my role as a teacher to create meaningful and authentic experiences where students can be active participants in their own learning. I actively seek out opportunities to get involved in the school community, in capacities ranging from directly supporting students to more behind the scenes roles serving on professional committees at the district level. I have had the opportunity and privilege to be supported by family, friends, and colleagues throughout my entire professional career and I feel a sense of responsibility to advocate for those who might not be in the same position as me.

I have been teaching for 31 years all in the Toledo area, I taught for 4 years at Central Catholic High School and for the last 27 at Springfield High School. My wife Suzi and I have been married for 34 years and we have 4 amazing children and 6 beautiful granddaughters. I have been teaching biology for over 20 of my 31 years of teaching, for the last 15 years I have taught honors biology and for the last 10 years AP Biology. This past year I created a class called Science Ethics in the 21st Century to better equip our students with the thinking skills necessary to navigate this ever changing and advancing world. In my free time my wife and I love to spend time traveling and exploring as well as visiting our kids in Cincinnati and Florida.

My philosophy on teaching is constantly changing especially with the last 2 years we have experienced. I would say first and foremost we need to build relationships with our students and meet them where they are and invite them to be part of the classroom. This is especially necessary when teaching our most vulnerable populations. When teaching my honors and AP kids it is quite the opposite these students are usually completely terrified of failure. They must be taught to exercise their tenacity and drive in the face of failure. I tell my honors and AP kids them silence is stupider than the wrong answer. I just read a quote the other day that sums this idea up a bit better, Teach young people it is better to fail in the pursuit of the extraordinary than to succeed pursuing average.

I have taught high school biology for 20 years in Skokie, IL (my alma matter). I currently teach freshman and AP Biology and have also taught chemistry and an independent research course. I earned a BS and minor in secondary education from the University of Illinois (UIUC) and an MA from St. Xavier University, Chicago. I am on the National Faculty for the College Board PreAP Program and am a member of the 2020 HHMI Biointeractive Ambassador Academy.

Teaching is my first career and I wouldn't choose any other profession. I enjoy making science meaningful and helping students to make connections to better understand the world around them. I enjoy using storylines and phenomenon-based learning in my classroom to actively engage ALL students in real-life scenarios while practicing science skills. I love the challenge of trying something new in the classroom, reflecting on how it worked and working with other teachers to revise and improve the lesson collaboratively. I am grateful to be a part of professional development networks where so many other educators enjoy collaborating together.

I have been a life science teacher at South Central Jr Sr High School for 6 years. This year I was awarded the Clyde Motts Memorial Award for Innovative High School Science Teaching. I am also currently in the Ed.D. for Curriculum and Instruction (focusing on science education) program at Indiana University Bloomington. My doctoral research currently focuses on science teaching strategies that cross the rigor divide and what strategies should be taught to pre-service teachers to help them cross that divide in their classrooms. I am interested in how teachers’ instructional strategies are influenced by the teacher's content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and personal beliefs (orientations). I am also interested in researching how to broaden pre-service teachers' knowledge of instructional strategies during the student teaching process. I believe that pre-service teachers should enter their first classrooms with a toolbelt of strategies that they learned in their teacher preparation program.

My goal as a science educator is to hone in on instructional strategies that are effective for teaching all kinds of students and then to continuously reflect, refine and redo those strategies. Many students strive for a challenge and opportunities to reach their full potential. Rather than going easy on my students, I respect my students enough to ask as much as them as they can give. Science classrooms are the perfect environment to expand their confidence, resilience and other skill sets that students need. I want students to leave my classroom as a more confident learner than when they first came in.

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My name is Erin Beck. I grew up in a small, rural community in Missouri which allowed me to foster my love for science, especially biology. I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis in 1994. After graduating, I was lucky enough to work for Genome Systems on the Human Genome Project. During my time there we collaborated with laboratories across the globe to discover the BRCA 1 breast cancer gene as well as the gene for colon cancer. Although the work I was doing was on the cutting edge of science, there was something missing. That something was teaching. In my quest to find a balance between my love for science and a fulfilling career I landed in a school as a paraprofessional helping special education students. One student in particular was especially influential on my decision to become a teacher. This truly was a life changing experience that inspired me to become the teacher I am today. I went on to receive my Master of Arts in Teaching from Webster University and have been teaching for the past 24 years.

As a biology teacher, one of my biggest goals is to foster a love for the natural world in my students. As teachers, we often focus on achievement test scores to demonstrate the impact we have made on the success of our students. But, I believe that the success of our students is much deeper than that. With the rise in the use of technology and electronic devices fewer and fewer of our students get meaningful experiences in the outdoors. This makes it difficult for our students to truly understand the real-world problems that we are facing today because they don't have a deep appreciation for nature. It has been my goal to get my students into the field as much as possible and to provide them with as many real-world experiences as possible so that they have the tools to solve the environmental problems that we face today.

I am a high school science teacher at Webster Area High School in Webster, South Dakota. I obtained my Baccalaureate of Science in Biology from Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Over the years I have had many influential teachers that motivated me to become a teacher. One exemplary teacher that stands out is my high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Roy Webster. Mr. Webster was real, genuine, and interacted with students in a meaningful manner. This philosophy has carried over into my educational journey as a teacher. I find value in building a connection with my students. With meaningful connections, I strive to make students feel capable and confident in all aspects of life. I was awarded the 2022 Webster Area School District Teacher of the Year. I take great pride in the Project Lead the Way program that I helped implement at the Webster Area High School.

My main goal as a teacher is for my students to apply their knowledge on real-life applications. The best way for students to learn is by applying their knowledge. Students are more apt to retain knowledge when they are actively learning versus simply regurgitating facts. The fact that students are able to see the direct correlation between what the textbook says and what they are doing in the lab ranks number one on my priority list as a biology teacher.

I have been teaching Biology and Earth and Environmental science at Southern Lee High School in Sanford, North Carolina for 11 years. I received my bachelor's degree in secondary science from East Carolina University. Following graduation, I pursued my master's in education from North Carolina State University, before starting a family. I have always loved science but I did not realize my love for teaching and education until college. Since then I have enjoyed sharing my passion for science with my students and growing as an educator. I am thankful for the opportunity and amazing coworkers I have had over the years and I am truly honored to receive this award.

My goal for students is to increase their awareness of the life that surrounds them, as well as a basic understanding of the intricate puzzle pieces that create life. The high school biology classroom is where many students become inspired to continue their education in the life sciences. Capturing their interest turns into nurturing their curiosity throughout the course. I want each of them to excel in the path they choose using the skills learned to master the content in biology to become productive citizens and have a positive impact on the world.

After graduating Auburn University with a degree in Microbiology, I joined my active duty military husband in Rhode Island; where I participated in the Rhode Island Teaching Fellows, an alternative teacher certification pathway designed to increase the number of highly qualified educators in science, mathematics, and special education. My passion is promoting science-literacy and critical thinking in the classroom. Flexibility and adaptability have allowed me to thrive while teaching in four schools across four different states over the course of my first six years as a teacher. I found my home at Sparkman High School in Harvest, Alabama where I have taught for the past eight years and served as department chair for the last six. Getting students involved is the best way to inspire learning. As such my classroom is a student-centered, collaborative workspace. I place learning into the hands of students by facilitating classroom discussions, cooperative working opportunities, and inquiry laboratory experiences.

This is my 18th year as a science teacher and 17 of those years have included biotechnology courses. I am currently teaching four different courses for our CTE Bioscience Program at Paradise Valley High School in the Center for Research, Engineering, Science, and Technology: Cell Biology, Genetics and Principles of Biotechnology, an interdisciplinary STEM Research course. I have previously taught Applied Biological Systems, Biology, Honors Biology and Anatomy and Physiology.
My Bachelor's Degree is from Arizona State University in Secondary Science Education. My Master's Degree is a Master of Arts of Science Teaching from Northern Arizona University.
Outside of school, I enjoy spending time with my family and friends camping, hiking and serving my community. I love the beach and I am a former Cast Member of the Walt Disney Company and I enjoy my annual trips to the Disney Theme Parks!

I hope to build the knowledge of my students through hands-on activities and teach them content and a variety of laboratory skills needed to be successful not only in science careers, but in post-secondary courses and other careers.

I joined the Math/Science Department of the New Mexico Military Institute in 2015. I am one of the primary sponsors of the NMMI-STEM Club, which started in 2019. The NMMI-STEM Club joined the New Mexico Governor's STEM Challenge in 2019, and they have been awarded as one of the Champions for three consecutive years from 2019-2021. In my seven years at NMMI, I have received two John F. Burton Professorship and two John F. Ward Professorship Awards. I have a master's degree in Advance Instructional Studies from Henderson State University, Arkansas. In March 2020, I received my National Certificate for STEM Teaching. I graduated with my second masters at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in New Mexico, with a degree Masters in Science Teaching with a specialization in biology. I started with my Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with a field in technology this summer through New Mexico State University.

My interest in teaching spans as far back as when I was seven years old; I had always played the teacher role to my two younger sisters as I babysat them. The walls of my parent’s house were full of writings. Some were readable words, but others were just scribbles; I imitated my 1st-grade teacher's cursive writing. When I go home to the Philippines and visit our parents' house, those writings on the walls are still visible; this may be because I used crayons, and my parents have not painted the walls, or maybe it is because we did not have the money to buy paint at that time. I try to remember if my parents had ever scolded me for doing the writings on the wall, but I think they just brushed it off; maybe in their minds, they had foreseen that I would become a teacher. However, my love for science, especially biology, began during my sophomore year when I had Ms. Ephleda Opiana, who made the lesson easy to comprehend and enjoyable. From that time on, I promised myself a college education and a major in biology, to which I did. In college, I was lucky to have great professors who made me enjoy science courses and made the science interest in me spark continually. Then I started teaching, and that passion for biology has become more intense as I go over concepts and simple labs with my students.

I love science, and luckily I get to teach it, learning with and from my students! I teach AP Biology, Physics, and Biotechnology as well as serving as an advisor for Science National Honor Society and HOSA at Eaglecrest High School in Aurora, Colorado. I have experience as an AP reader of both AP Environmental Science and Biology exams and am a consultant for AP Biology. I also am a National Board Certified teacher in Biology. I honed my passion for science at the University of Michigan and earned her Master’s in Science Education at Montana State University. I am currently finishing a second Master’s in Biological Sciences from the University of Northern Colorado. I served as a PST fellow for the DOE’s Office of Science, a PLT facilitator, and a curriculum consultant. Skiing, spending time in the mountains, reading, and just being with my family are my favorite things.

Teaching is rewarding because I am constantly learning and adapting, not only to the changing way we teach content, but also how to engage and relate to my students. I think the best way to learn science is to do science; my students are often engaged in planning and completing laboratories. Young people have often led the changes that shape history, and so I want my students to be the young people that help shape a sustainable future grounded in scientific literacy. Though not all of my students will go on to study biology or become scientists, they will all be consumers of biology in their lives. My goal in biology education is to help guide students toward the learning needed to make them the leaders in their lives and community and to open doors to important careers in science.

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