There are several things I learned from my Kenan Fellows experience that will change how I teach this year. I learned about some new apps and I learned to be more comfortable with technology, so I hope to incorporate more technology in my teaching this year. I learned a great deal about diabetes so I will be able to help my students learn about and educate the community about one of the biggest health issues in our county. I learned so much more about health careers and that will help me to better advise my students who are interested in health care. Already I have talked to some of my students about this and given away some of the medical books and nursing magazines that staff at the hospital gave me. I have even learned things from other people’s externship projects and I can’t wait for Earth/Environmental Science second semester so I can incorporate some of the things I learned about biofuels from Ben Littell while we read an article on biofuels in the Duplin Times that came out last week which quotes Ben’s mentor. (Note to Duplin Kenan Fellows – it was awesome.)

I expect my summer experience with the Kenan Fellows Program will impact my students in a positive way because I will teach Biology differently. There will be a different framework for much of what they will learn because I will tie many topics into something meaningful to them: diabetes. The incidence of that disease is so high in my county that I expect each student knows someone with diabetes. I hope to give my students an extra motivation to learn biology this year since they will work toward using what they learn in order to do service projects that will benefit the community by providing diabetes education. Already I have told some students who were helping with Summer Bridge about that and they were excited about the community service. I think another thing that will impact my Biology class is that there will be more people than just me involved in the teaching this year. I plan to invite my mentor and the hospital nutritionist to come to my class. In addition, I invited a school staff member and several of my students who have diabetes to help with the teaching. We just had a meeting on Friday to plan and it was really exciting. So many ideas were being tossed around and everyone was enthusiastic.

I expect my Kenan Fellows summer experience will impact my AP Environmental Science students as well. Last year I started off the school year with enthusiasm, but second semester I was nervous about teaching a new course and an AP course at that. I think my Kenan Fellows experience has gotten me back in contact with my inner “good teacher” and that I will start the year with more confidence and excitement.