Wrapping up my First Year Teaching

July 16, 2026

I’m reflecting on my first year teaching! I’m so thankful to SCPS for giving me this opportunity as a career switcher and to my co-workers, admin, district folks, and my students (all 400 of them) for making my first year so amazing and rewarding!

I got to teach 400 6th–8th graders computer skills, video game design, AI and machine learning, computer hardware, and office skills, and also led a STEAM club flex class. Some professional highlights:

PD and Learning

• Selected as a UMW–NSWCDD STEAM Fellow developing robotics and CS curricula for VDOE’s GoOpenVA.
• Participated in Longwood University’s Computer Science through Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Education (CS-AIDE) community of practice.
• Co-facilitated a Micron teacher PD on hardware, electrical engineering, and block coding, leading to next week’s CHIP Camp at GMU.
• Continued as a NASA STELLA STEM Education Ambassador.
• Taught two Art Technically PDs for Coastal Virginia educators on NASA resources and Computational Thinking.

Conferences & Curriculum

• Presented two workshops at SEEC at Space Center Houston on data science and Astrobotany.
• Presented at the Virginia Teacher Data Science & Computing Summit on my binary bracelets lesson.
• Presented at CSTA with Sangmin Pak on NASA data science and gave a flash talk on AI ethics and generative AI in middle school.

Developed a new coding platform for Art Technically’s Love Letters program (code.arttechnically.org). Students from 10 states coded 650+ Valentine’s Day cards, with 550 delivered to seniors in Virginia.

Grants

• Received an Innovative Teaching Grant from the Stafford Educational Foundation.
• Won an ORISE Digital Citizenship lesson plan contest and received $1,000 in classroom supplies.

Education

• Finished and defended my PhD (oh yeah).

Passed two Praxis exams and completed all but one course for my provisional teaching license.

While I’m proud of these accomplishments, I’m most proud of the relationships I built with my students and the work they put into becoming coders and skilled computer users.