I have been teaching for eight years in the New York City public school system. All of those years have been spent at a selective performing arts high school on the Upper East Side teaching chemistry and biology. My courses are aligned with the Regents standards.
I use the workshop method of teaching, which involves a mini lesson followed by a pair up activity and a summary. On a macro level, however, I designed all my lessons using the "backwards planning" approach to lesson design. I started by creating well-rounded assessments, split the question topics into manageable chunks, then created lessons (aligned with homework questions) that would hit every skill and topic on the assessment.
For what it's worth, I have 100% pass on the physics, chemistry, and biology Regents exams for all of my teaching years in all courses.
I attended high school in rural West Virginia. I was lucky to attend a school that used a concentrations system in high school. So, naturally, I was a science major. In college, I majored in the Biological Basis of Behavior from the University of Pennsylvania. My master's degree in secondary science education was earned at the City College of New York.
I also am an avid runner and swimmer, a competitor in New York Road Runner races, and I am training for my first triathlon and marathon later this year.