How did you get into teaching computing and cybersecurity in a middle school?

I went through the Resident Teacher Program, which is a transitional program to get people from other careers into teaching in Prince George County. That was back in 2013 and to get in, you had to have a background in a certain area. They had a need for secondary math teachers. Since I have my bachelors in computer science I was thinking about where I wanted to teach, because I've always enjoyed working with young people, and I already knew that middle school was the most challenging area.

I spent a few years teaching seventh and then sixth grade math and then I started teaching science as well. After about 5 years of teaching, I got to the point where I wanted to try something different. I've always had this vision in my mind, since I started teaching, that I might go back to my old high school where I first took computer science. At Eleanor Roosevelt High School I actually ended up running into my former teacher who still teaches there, Dave Eisenberg! But I was contacted by the Assistant Principal at Governor Thomas Johnson Middle School about teaching STEM. 

I took the time to learn the STEM content myself. I've always been a student, and I believe that you're a better teacher when you actually learn it for yourself. So as I taught it, I learned it; the first year I had to pick it up, but by the second year I had it down. The best part is I've been able to add my own personal spin, especially because I went to Thomas Johnson Middle School myself. Their STEM program is a feature of the specialty program in Prince George's County. We teach biomedical engineering and I'm big on nutrition and health, so I'm able to give the students insight into that. With the aerospace engineering, I was able to tap into that background as I learned new things and the phenomena blew me away. I was able to express the excitement and enjoyment I felt with the students and help them to feel that as well.

Computer science is my background. I worked in it, and my father was in IT, so I always tell the students, 'Hey, I know more about technology than you,' and invite them to prove me wrong; we have a good time with that.

It's just exciting teaching and I'm really into it. I hope that as I express it to the students, that they get that excitement, are engaged, and hopefully pursue it in the future.

What’s going well for you right now?

One thing that works really well is that every student in the school takes my class. They have it here on A/B days, so they have CS and cybersecurity pretty much half the year, and I can integrate stuff that they're learning in their other classes. It lines up very well with the math and science and some of the social studies and reading concepts as well. What really, really works well is the arts integrated into it. Our school is big on creativity,  which helps motivate them to learn and hold onto the concepts. They learn to perform and present and even produce works like designing a new app, which is something that we're getting into now. They also get to design and construct a prototype prosthetic as part of the STEM curriculum, as well as create a website and code it in HTML. They can be creative and it works really well. With almost 1,400 students in the school, there are at least 2 STEM teachers for each grade level. Each of us teaches half the grade level.