Introducing Deanna Cullen
If you attended a recent BCCE or ChemEd conference, perhaps you encountered Deanna Cullen, either as a presenter or active participant. A science teacher for 21 years, Deanna currently teaches chemistry and advanced placement chemistry at a public high school in Whitehall, Michigan. She has served as an advisor for Science Olympiad teams and other student organizations. After completing her M.Ed, Deanna participated in the inquiry-based science teaching professional development program, and brought positive changes to her classroom and beyond. She notes “[W]e use the data collected through that research to evaluate our curriculum. The Target Inquiry Program* has strengthened my knowledge of science standards and assessment tools and improved my assessment and evaluation techniques.”
Check out JCE’s new partner website JCE Chemical Education Exchange (ChemEd Xchange). Deanna’s main responsibilities with JCE will be to help grow this new site into a valuable interactive resource.
Introducing Greg Rushton
As a former high school teacher and now as a Ph.D. physical organic chemist who also directs the Master of Arts in Teaching Science Program at Kennesaw State University Georgia, Greg Rushton strives to improve science education. Greg works daily to recruit, prepare, and retain secondary school chemistry teachers. As part of these efforts, he also hopes to realize an even larger project, “a vision for a robust community of precollege professionals who embrace and develop an identity as chemical educators, and have an accessible publication that is directed solely at its needs, interests, and aspirations.”
* Target Inquiry (TI) is a 2½-year program at Grand Valley State University, Allendale MI designed to
- provide teacher participants with an authentic science laboratory research experience, and
- facilitate the integration of their research experience into their classroom through the design, implementation, and evaluation of inquiry-based curriculum. http://www.gvsu.edu/targetinquiry
