Ms. Anderson is a great educator to have. This being her first year teaching, she has already made a great impact on our school. Whenever I first heard about her class, all I heard was notes after notes, and constant homework; her class is anything but that. Ms. Anderson has a very hands-on teaching style while also including a good amount of auditory and visual teaching techniques. When I walked into her classroom for the first time, I knew that the class could never be as bad as other students have said. The room itself shows that Ms. Anderson is a kind and understanding teacher that will do her best to help her students.

The subject she teaches, science, can often require a lot of work for the students. However, Ms. Anderson takes the work and is able to distribute it evenly so that no student should be too stressed out over her class. She distributes the students into groups so that they can learn amongst each other and from each other. Yet while in groups, she also assigns amounts of independent work so that students can gain confidence in their work and not always rely on someone else for answers. Whenever students are confused with their work, Ms. Anderson will guide the students through the question(s) and explain the packets in deeper meaning. She will also go over the assignments and work in class before releasing students to do group work. That way they can get a basic understanding of what to do.

However, packets aren’t the only thing she assigns. Ms. Anderson also assigns a good amount of labs and other assignments that involve interactions with the other students and hands-on activities. We’ve done multiple things varying from growing plants to watching the Lion King and comparing it to biological interactions that happen in real life. They both are great experiences to have as a student. We got to watch how organisms grew, how they can be falsely portrayed, and how they react around one another.

Although her teaching style is great, her way of dealing with the students is also amazing. I myself can barely handle the amount of chaos the students in that class bring, yet she can somehow gather everyone’s attention to class and help them focus. The students were complaining constantly and she jokingly asked us if we needed a tattletale box and we all said yes. Keep in mind, we’re high schoolers, not 3rd graders. She actually complied with our request for a tattletale box and has checked it daily. Along with that, at the beginning of the year, she sent out a Getting to know you google form, in which she asked students about their identity and how she should address them.

All of this shows how Ms. Anderson is not only a great teacher but a great person and deserves the Educator of the Year award.