Contributors Bios

Jennifer Brown

Marla Hines, NBCT
I've spent my teaching career teaching in both public and private school, all in Alabama. I was trained as an educator using an inquiry model.  However, when I entered the classroom, teaching 5 different science classes, I found that traditional teaching, using a textbook was really all I had time to manage.  After one year of teaching, I began to long for those ideas of inquiry that I had learned about, but failed to implement in my own classroom.  My students one day asked me to help them prepare for the ACT that was coming up.  Having never taken the ACT (I'm a product of Georgia public schools and only took the SAT), I sat down and took a practice test and QUICKLY realized that I was doing my students a huge dis-service by teaching traditionally.  Sure, I'd get them through high school, with lots of great science knowledge, but I was handicapping them for their next steps in life, by not preparing them at all to be THINKERS.
So, my next teaching assignment, I decided would be somewhere that I could be an innovative teacher using these inquiry models that I knew was missing from my classroom.  I found such a place and curriculum at Spain Park High School in Hoover, Alabama.  My college mentor, Dr. Lee Meadows was actually on sabbatical there to see how inquiry he was teaching realistically looked in a high school classroom.  He found a curriculum called "Active Physics" by It's About Time Publishing.  I used this curriculum to learn to be a teacher with a classroom of engaged students who were learning science content AND learning to think and undergo the processes of "inquiry" that research scientist undergo every day.  The teachers that I met at Spain Park, were the finest educators in one location that I can imagine.  I bet that there was no campus in the country with a faculty that could've out worked this group.  We fed off each other and collaborated every moment available; in the hall between classes, at lunch, during PLC time.  They taught me what it meant to be an authentic facilitator of learning and encouraged me to become National Board Certified.  I would not be the educator I am today without the learning that took place in that special place.
That is where my teaching career really began.  Since then, I've moved away from a textbook altogether and developed my own curriculum based on lab experiences.  I've also come to Vestavia Hills High School to implement the curriculum, where I work with some wonderfully creative and dynamic educators that push me to find new ways to continue to grow and learn,which isn't easy in the "middle ages" of a teaching career.  I now accept a more broad role of teacher leader, not only in my school, but district, state and beyond. With presentations, workshops and conference attendances, I am able to network, share and learn how to continue to become a better educator.
In 2011, I was named the Alabama Secondary Teacher of the Year and was given the opportunity to work with teachers across Alabama. I've been given so many opportunities to learn and contribute because of that experience and I will be forever grateful.
I am currently a 2013 finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching (PAEMST) and hopeful to hear some good news about a national announcement anytime????
Thanks for taking the time to see what Jennifer and I are up to and learning about.  Happy Teaching!!