PAEMST Week: Tuesday—Travel and Arrival

I woke up Sacramento at oh dark thirty to catch 6:05am flight to Dallas-Fort Worth. From there it was off to Washington DC, where I caught up with my mother (my designated PAEMST guest). The flights were arranged through the PAEMST Recognition Program and included Priority Seating.

It was the first test of my spiffy new Pelican PCS283 detachable wheeled camera/courier bag. It performed like a champ.

We Blue Vanned it from Reagan International to The Willard InterContinental, where my sister had arranged a lovely welcome gift for us. She's so sweet! (And so were those ginormous cookies!)

Nest we set off in search of a nearby Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Finding it was less trivial than one might think. And they were closed when we got there, so we settled for Cusine du Quiznos.

We made a quick recon run to the White House and a clear view of the Washington Monument (to make sure they were really there). Then it was back to The Willard, where we happened to bump into none other than the illustrious Frank Noschese, himself. I was scruffy, tired, and not entirely oriented, but I knew enough to pull Frank into Hug Harbor! I hope he didn't mind.

Full agenda tomorrow, starting with registration, breakfast, and official portraits.

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Congratulates Two California Teachers on Prestigious National Honors

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today congratulated two California teachers who have been named by President Barack Obama as recipients of the prestigious 2011 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST) award. The two teachers were among 97 educators named nationwide.

The California science winner is Dean Baird, a physics teacher at Sacramento’s Rio Americano High School in the San Juan Unified School District.

The California mathematics winner is Kentaro Iwasaki, a math teacher and chair of the Mathematics Department at San Francisco’s Mission High School in the San Francisco Unified School District.                                                          

"I’m proud and delighted to see two of California’s own honored by the President for dedication, talent, and hard work," said Torlakson. "They deserve our admiration and appreciation for their professional and personal efforts to encourage their students to pursue subjects that are so critical to the future of our state and our nation."

Baird has taught physics, computer science and electronics, and physical science since 1986 at Rio Americano High School. He is the recipient of numerous local, state, and national recognition awards. Baird also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the University of Michigan and a Master of Science degree in instructional leadership in curriculum and instruction from National University. As part of the PAEMST application, Baird presented his "Why the Sky is Blue" video that actively explores a variety of alternative explanations through experimentation, demonstration, and discussion.

Iwasaki teaches math and serves as the Chair of the Mathematics Department at Mission High School, a high poverty school where 38 percent of its students are learning English. He not only teaches struggling students, but also teaches honors and Advanced Placement math courses, working to explain the most complex math topics in such a way that students can then become teachers of math themselves.

Recognition ceremonies for the 2011 Presidential Awardees will be held Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

PAEMST  is the highest recognition that a kindergarten through twelfth grade math or science teacher may receive for outstanding teaching in the United States. PAEMST was enacted by Congress in 1983 and authorizes the President each year to bestow up to 108 awards to math and science teachers from each of the 50 states and four U.S. jurisdictions including Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico; Department of Defense Schools; and the U.S. territories. PAEMST awards alternate yearly between honoring primary and secondary teachers.

Since the program's inception, 84 California teachers have been named PAEMST recipients.


California Department of Education 25 June 2012 Press Release

Congratulations from Senator Boxer

California Senator Barbara Boxer sent a kind letter of congratulations for my selection as a national PAEMST finalist. Click to embiggen.

My PAEMST Application Timeline

March 2011
My mentor, Steve Keith, nominates me for the 2011 Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching. This time, I acknowledge the nomination and register on the PAEMST application website. (When Steve Keith nominated me in 2009, I did not register. Luckily for me, Keith wasn't going to take "no" for an answer. In faux inductor terminology, his insistence was greater than my reluctance.)

March/April 2011
I complete the application with the assistance of Rio's Principal, Brian Ginter, my evaluating administrator, Vice Principal Vanessa Adolphson, my protégé (former student extraordinaire now physics teacher extraordinaire), Jesuit's Jessica Scheimer, my other mentor, Conceptual Physics author, Paul G. Hewitt, and my 2010-11 Physics students (especially videographer Amir Khazaieli and my 6th period class).

May 2011
I was sweating the finishing details of the application package as the news of Osama Bin Laden's demise was breaking. The bulky package was sent to Jim Miller at the California Department of Education for state review.

My participation in the process is now done. It is left to others to decide. This is also where I enter the realm of the unknown. When will the state decide who moves forward to national consideration? When will national winners be announced?

9 June 2011
I get a call from California's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson, congratulating me on being one of three state finalists in science for the PAEMST. Total shocker! But I'm smooth and professional with the guy, acting as if I'm always ready to take a call from the State Sup and advise him as needed. But I was floating. The phone call occurred on the penultimate day of school, so seniors were done. And it happened as I was meeting Paul and Lillian Hewitt at the train station; they were in Sacramento for a brief visit.

Details in this Blog of Phyz post

Every Single Day From June 9, 2011 Through June 11, 2012
I wonder if I'll earn recognition as a national finalist. Yes: Every day. I'm not proud of that, but I'm not going to lie.

October 2011
The CSTA and CDE organize a nice awards breakfast as part of CSTA's conference in Pasadena. CDE's Jim Miller assures the awardees that this year's applications were unusually voluminous and unusually strong. Many otherwise excellent candidates had to be turned away.

February 2012
I am asked to grant permission to the Federal Bureau of Investigations National Name Check Program (FBI NNCP) so that they may verify my identity. No worries. I presumed (rightly or wrongly) that all state finalists had to submit to this level of scrutiny.

May 2012
I am asked to provide a head shot photo, a brief professional biography, a response to "What does the Presidential Award mean to you?," my cell phone number and whom PAEMST could share that number with. I begin work on this blog, but keep the blog under wraps.

5 June 2012
I am told to clear my calendar for the end of June to accommodate possible travel to Washington, DC.

11 June 2012
The announcement is made.

2013
I believe it.

Clever as I might think I am, I do not know where along the preceding timeline I should have presumed I was a national finalist. A long time passed between 9 June 2011 and late February 2012. I didn't really entertain the possibility until the May request for additional information. But my doubts remained alive and kicking. The 5 June notice killed many (though not all) those doubts.

The Winner Is...

Me! (Well, me and 96 other teachers from across the nation.) Specifically, I am the winning science teacher from the great state of California.

White House Press Release

National Science Foundation Fact Sheet

Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching
Website Information about the program
Recognition Page Awardees • Agenda • Registration & Logistics • Logistics
2011 Recipients List All 97 PAEMST honorees with reflections and professional biographies
Personal Biography Page Me!

Devotchka instrumental from Little Miss Sunshine

In large part, the announcement did nothing to change anything about the day. I knew it would be incumbent upon me to share the news to anyone who might wish to know. Sure, it would have been nice if confetti fell from the ceiling when I walked into school's administration building, but that thing's been busted since the '90s.

The one "intrusion" of an altered reality was a flurry of email notices from Twitter. I have a Twitter account to stay informed about things and stuff when I'm at TAM (The Amazing Meeting) or AAPT Summer Meetings. And I'm pretty sure I'm not even doing that right. Outside those meetings, I really don't tweet. So I felt bad: all these kind folks following me, and me not being much of a tweeter. But that did nothing to diminish the elation of the day.

Last One Out

Not really a work of art. But I leave it to the gentle readers to admire or laugh or judge. My own interpretation is complex. I have taken one path. Many others are equally valid. I will say the images here are authentic. To make this stuff up would be truly disturbing.

Last One Out

CSTA/CDE Pasadena PAEMST Event

The California Science Teachers Association held their annual conference in Pasadena last October. In conjunction with the California Department of Education, an awards breakfast was arranged to honor California's PAEMST state finalists in science.

The event was reported in CTSA's California Classroom Science.

Here are some photographs taken by CSTA President, Rick Pomeroy.

Ericka Senegar-Mitchell, Jim Miller, Dean Baird, Ziba Mayar


Jim Miller, Dean Baird

Certificates and a Postal Mutilation

I received this certificate from the California Department of Education shortly after the phone call from Tom Torlakson in June, 2011.

I received this certificate from the Council of State Science Supervisors in July.

I displayed the one from from the CDE on my Wall of Ego. But the one from CSSS, though lovely and appreciated, seemed redundant. So I kept it in a safe place.

The one from the CDE was preceded by a letter. Like anyone else, I get a lot of postal mail. Most of it bearing little interest or personal value. Lots of mail. The one letter I ever got from Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson? Mutilated:

About 20% of the letter was torn off and gone. Eaten by a sorting machine, perhaps. 

Imagine if were into superstition or omens! I'm sure I would have given up on any prospects of advancement at that point.

2011 PAEMST State Finalists in Science

I believe this list at the Council of State Science Supervisors (CSSS) was posted in late August, 2011.

http://www.csss-science.org/awards.shtml

It's not an easy list to find. If there is a path from CSSS' home page to this page, I couldn't find it. (That doesn't mean it's not there.)

I was delighted to see a few familiar names on the list. I knew of New York's Frank Noschese. He plays chess while I play checkers. He's a deep thinker on physics teaching and is a passionate proponent of Modeling Instruction. I also know Colorado's Patricia Loeblein. She is a central mover and shaker at PhET. She authors PhET-based curriculum and is a tireless advocate for PhET. I worked the PhET booth with her at NSTA/San Francisco last year.

I probably knew others on the list from conferences or other projects, and there were others I should have known. But as much as I struggle to keep track of my own details, I sometimes lose track...

2011 California State Finalists

I covered the announcement of California's PAEMST state finalists on my Blog of Phyz.

Here's the link.

There was also an article in The Carmichael Patch.

I'll confess it was encouraging and discouraging to learn of my fellow nominees in science. Encouraging to know about such great science teachers working in California. Discouraging in that I was in competition with such great California teachers to earn national recognition.

I'm not making this up. Look at this video about Serra High School's Ericka Senegar-Mitchell!



How awesome is that?

Here's what the Temecula Patch had to say about Ziba Mayar:
http://temecula.patch.com/articles/temecula-teacher-finalist-for-national-honors

Here are the descriptions that were included in the CDE's press release:

"[Dean] Baird has taught physics, computer science and electronics, and physical science since 1986 at Rio Americano High School. He is the recipient of numerous local, state, and national recognition awards and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the University of Michigan and a Master of Science degree in instructional leadership in curriculum and instruction from National University. Baird presented his "Why the Sky is Blue" video that actively explores a variety of alternative explanations through experimentation, demonstration, and discussion.

[Ericka] Senegar-Mitchell has taught biology and biotechnology courses since 2007 at Junipero Serra High School. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry from Loyola Marymount University, a second Bachelor of Science in biology from the California State University, Dominguez Hills; a teaching credential in biological sciences and chemistry from California State University, Fullerton; and a Master of Arts and a Doctorate in Education Psychology from Chapman University. Senegar-Mitchell is San Diego Unified's 2010 High School Teacher of the Year, a San Diego County Teacher of the Year, and a finalist for the California Teacher of the Year. Her video was a laboratory-based lesson focused on mammalian cell culture techniques.

[Ziba] Mayar has taught high school biology courses since 2001 at Temecula Valley High School. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from San Diego State University and was selected as the 2011 Riverside County Science Teacher of the Year. Her video focused on DNA re-combination and used student coaches to instruct and support the learning of other students."

PAEMST Application Video Lesson: "Why the Sky is Blue"

The 2011 PAEMST application required the submission of a videotaped lesson as delivered in the classroom. The length was not to exceed 45 minutes. And there were to be edits or breaks; not stopping and restarting the recorder. Simply one continuous shot. The application stated a need to see students' faces in addition to the teacher's lesson.

So the shooting conditions were non-ideal. If one were hoping to produce a slick representation of the lesson, one would use multiple angles, sophisticated microphones, etc. Nonetheless, here is the video that I submitted, as recorded by my ace videographer and then-Rio student, Amir Khazaieli.

PAEMST Video - Why The Sky is Blue - Dean Baird


In my own assessment, I think I was pretty stiff and unnatural. I had never recorded a class before, so the students were not entirely at ease with a camera locking in on them. Thankfully, the lesson was robust, and it went well.

My PAEMST Application Essay

When the simpler elements of the PAEMST application are complete, it's time to hunker down and complete the extensive written response. The overall title of the 2011 essay was "Dimensions of Outstanding Teaching." And it was... thorough!

In brief, applicants were asked to document
1. Mastery of their content appropriate for the grade level taught (with sub-prompts, in 4 pages).
2. Use of instructional methods and strategies that are appropriate for the students in the class and that support student learning (with sub-prompts, in 4 pages).
3. Effective use of student assessments to evaluate, monitor, and improve student learning (with sub-prompts, in 3 pages).
4. Reflective practice and life-long learning to improve teaching and student learning (with sub-prompts, in 2 pages).
5. Leadership in education outside the classroom (with sub-prompts, in 2 pages).

Integral to most dimension of the written response was the 45-minute lesson that was videotaped (without the use of tape) and documented in the Supplements section of the application.

(Note: PAEMST is a living organism and any element of the process is subject to change without notice from one year to the next.)

The world was crackling with news of the demise of Osama Bin Laden while I was finishing the written response. A strange distraction, but a foreshadowing of the fact that important national and world events proceed without regard to one's PAEMST timeline.

Here is a zipped folder including a PDF of the written response and the supplements:

Dean Baird's "Dimensions of Outstanding Teaching" with lesson supplements 

My PAEMST Résumé

Teachers applying for the PAEMST are rarely short of résumé material. But there has to be a limit on the length of the résumé even if only for the benefit of those tasked with evaluating the applications.

I posted an online résumé back in the mid-'90s, when I was first learning HTML and posting web pages. I've maintained it (casually) throughout the intervening years. But it was much too much for the PAEMST application.

The PDF that follows is what I submitted, sans some personal contact information.

Dean Baird's PAEMST application résumé

1998

I never saw Deep Impact or Armageddon. But the preview for Deep Impact showed a scenario in which the Earth was about to take a beating and certain people were being moved into specially prepared shelters to survive the calamity.


So 1,000,000 people were going to be saved. Stay with me here! Of those, 800,000 via a lottery and 200,000 were pre-selected. And there were teachers in among those 200,000. How would they be chosen? I bet winners of the PAEMST were among the chosen ones.

In 1998, I applied for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. I had recently completed my Masters of Science in Instructional Leadership (with Honors), was elected to the officer cycle for the Northern California and Nevada American Association of Physics Teachers, been published in The Physics Teacher, was an editor on the Metrologic Physics Bowl Exam, was on the Golden State Exam Development Committee, and played a role in my school's designation as a Department of Education Blue Ribbon School.

I had spent 11 years conquering the physics-teaching world and was ready for some recognition at the national level. My mentors, Walt Scheider and Steve Keith had earned this honor. As did my Northern California physics teaching colleagues, Paul Robinson and Andria Erzberger. These were all great physics teachers; I was a great physics teacher. It was time to join the club.

So I put together the best application I could. I polished it. I honed it.

I didn't make it past the first screening. That hurt. Worst of all, I had to fear comets just like everyone else.

It wasn't until 2000 that Susan Crown honored me with through Cornell's Merrill Scholar program. Later that year, Paul Hewitt happened upon my Book of Phyz and plugged my into the Conceptual Science team as lab manual author. Story for another post. And it wasn't until 2003 that was appointed to California's Content Review Panel. PTSOS didn't take off until after that, and the Laser Viewing Tank was a spin-off of that.

The "excellence in physics teaching" universe is bigger than I imagined. And I know now that I will never conquer it.

Walt Scheider

The first I ever heard of The Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching was when I partnered with Walt Scheider.

I was in need of a cooperating teacher for my observation and student teaching assignments at The University of Michigan's School of Education. It was my senior year at Michigan. I had switched my major from Aerospace Engineering to Education (Physics Major/Math Minor) at the end of my sophomore year. There was some tumult involved in that road fork.

In any case, I was now on a path to become a high school physics teacher. On purpose. I needed a master teacher to work with. In an unusual embarrassment of riches, Michigan had two physics teachers-in-training that year. The routine was to work with the veteran teacher at Ann Arbor Pioneer High School.

But Dr. Jean Krisch, the best physics instructor I had at Michigan, told me about Walt Schieder. He was the physics teacher at Ann Arbor Huron High. Krisch's daughter had been a student in Scheider's class, and he came highly recommended. Although I did not set the river on fire in Krisch's Physics 401 course, I admired her immensely and set off to make arrangements with Scheider.

Walt Scheider held a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard. He was a successful research scientist. One year—deep into his career—he turned down a $125,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to go teach high school physics. So there he was at Ann Arbor Huron High.

It was about that time that PAEMST was born. Scheider applied that very first year. And he won. He deserved it. By all accounts, Walt Scheider was an outstanding physics teacher.

Two years later, I show up—unannounced—looking to horn in on his classes. "I don't think I can take a student teacher this year because I'll be carpooling," was his response to my proposal. I clearly came across as an intelligent, confident, well-prepared candidate. In reality, he never had a student teacher and wasn't necessarily looking to take one on.

But I was persistent. I somehow convinced him I wouldn't interfere with his carpooling agenda or permanently damage his students. I treasured the time I spent in the presence of this master. I soaked it in as best I could. He gave me very little time in front of the class. Arrangements were looser in those days, and I was something of a Guinea pig working with him.

What little time I did have in front of his classes was enough to point out—at least to me—that I wasn't as good as he was. I wanted to be that good. But I wasn't.

I feared that at the end of it all, he would counsel me into considering an alternate career path. Instead he wrote me a glowing recommendation that I did not feel worthy of. We kept in touch, off and on, for years after I moved out to California. He died just a few years ago.

Walt Scheider is a bright star in the constellation I use to steer the ship of my curriculum.

Nomination

I was nominated for the PAEMST in 2009 by California's 1989 PAEMST honoree in science, Steve Keith. I was flattered, but I did not apply.

I love what I do for a living and I take it seriously. Through the years, I have been recognized for excellence, but I had never applied for any such honor. I never aspired to be Teacher of the Year at any level. The only thing I ever envisioned being was Teacher of the... classes I teach.

Steve Keith was one of my official mentors when I arrived in Sacramento at the ripe old age of 21. I don't know how many times I turned to him in panic, but I sure was glad he was there to help.

Steve taught at Casa Roble High School: half a county away, but still in the sprawling San Juan  Unified School District. He led many physics-themed workshops in the popular Schools and Colleges for the Advancement of Teaching Science (yes, SCATS) program at CSU Sacramento. He was clearly passionate about physics. He was level-headed. He was a Mac user. He was a good guy.

As it turns out, he still is. All those things!

A few years ago, the Physics Teacher SOS New Teacher Workshop program that Paul Robinson, Stephanie Finander, and I were running expanded. We had been presenting exclusively at Robinson's San Mateo High School, but I was charged with mirroring the program out of my own school. I needed a partner to co-present the workshops. Steve Keith was the one guy I knew would be up for it.

He retired from the classroom a few years ago, but he's fit as a fiddle and remains a treasure-trove of pedagogical know-how and workshop presentation savvy. Having him on board meant we could run a PTSOS workshop series in Sacramento. The man would be worth his weight in gold if we measured his weight on Jupiter and the gold's weight on the Moon. Think about it!

In any case, he didn't give up on me. He nominated me again in 2011. The only way to stop him from this flattering nagging ("flaggering") was to apply for the dang thing. If I win, he was right and I get to meet the President! More likely I loose to a better-qualified candidate and he leaves me alone about PAEMST. Win-win!

About this blog

Blogs can be slighted as self-indulgent. As graffiti with punctuation. Written by people with too much time on their hands and read by people with too much time on their hands.

Fair enough.

A wise colleague once told me, "There is no history unless you record it."

This blog is my attempt to document my experience as an applicant for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST).

It will be my story of how I ended up in Washington, DC, being honored as one of the best science teachers in the United States of America. I have always acknowledged having an ego the size of Montana. Hence Phyz.org and The Blog of Phyz.

The Presidential Award is a singular event. Important enough (to me) to establish a separate blog for. I leave it to my gentle readers to decide how self-indulgent it is.

The plan is to document as much of this process as is practicable. Maybe post the application essay. Maybe post the submitted video. (I'll need help on that as I can't seem to successfully Handbrake the video off the DVD that my videographer student produced. Apparently it contains a bad "atom." Wha?) There will be photos and stories relating to the recognition program coming up in Washington. And after that, who knows?

Don't necessarily trust the post dates as the dates the posts were authored.