Mark Blessington

I have ten years full time teaching experience, two in a high-need urban district, two in an affluent suburban district, and currently work somewhere in the middle. My experience has included four distinct scheduling patterns with different needs and limitations, including 99 minute block periods. I have attended extensive professional development in pedagogy and the implementation of innovative 'canned' curricula. Additionally, I have worked on professional curriculum development for new or completely remodeled courses in two public school districts, focusing on Engineering and Environmental Science.

I have a lot of experience with using small chunks of time, developed during my work in a high needs district - quickly switching from interactive review to lecture, to demo, to lecture, to lab, to vocabulary, and so on. I have worked with both traditional and flipped models, and now combine where two where effective to allow for extra lab time or a deeper exploration of a topic. I do a substantial amount of technological integration to my curriculum, and an even greater portion of hands-on activities. This leads students to uncover many of the unit's details and concepts independently, which leads to a greater concept retention while emphasizing creativity, collaboration, and individual responsibility.

I attended Assumption College from 2004-2008, dual majoring in Biotechnology and Philosophy. After graduation I began work in a research laboratory while I worked on my teacher's certification. This has given me a wide breadth of academic and professional knowledge to teach from. Since then I have taken professional development, often for graduate credit, in pedagogy, chemistry and engineering education.

I gravitate strongly to the higher level questioning and out of the box planning. Bioethical and Environmental policy debates have featured strongly in my science classroom, as have traditional labs and nontraditional reading and writing assignments. Students in my room have had to design their own levees, towns, robots, and comic books. I'm always looking for what will work, not just what we've always done.