2024 Meet the Candidates

Ryan Casey

Ryan obtained his PhD in chemistry and pursued a career in industry before finding his calling in the classroom. He was attracted to modeling instruction as it most closely resembled the day to day activities of a scientist. Ryan has taught 10th and 11th grade on level, honors, and AP chemistry. Ryan looks forward to teaching physics in the future should the opportunity arise. He loves the AMTA community, it has dramatically changed his teaching and his students’ learning. Ryan is interested to see how the board operates and would like to help in any way possible.

Emma Mitchell

Emma is a  science teacher at The Ethel Walker School, an independent school for girls in Simsbury, Connecticut. She serves as the  Chair of the Science Department and teaches physics at all levels, from 9th-grade physics to an advanced-level course for 11th and 12th graders, as well as various science electives. She is passionate about collaborative, student-centered science pedagogical practices that allow all students to build confidence and skills. She is also deeply invested in the initiative to empower girls in STEM. She  took my first Modeling Instruction workshop in 2020,  was immediately hooked and it changed her  entire teaching practice as a result. Ever since then, she has been as involved as she can as a workshop participant and, more recently, as a workshop leader. The AMTA has changed her career, has helped her to find more fulfillment in her teaching, and has connected her with an invaluable network of educators and resources.  She would love the opportunity to work on the Executive Board to give back to the community that has given her so much, to help provide access and opportunities to other teachers in their professional journeys, and to help the organization move forward in becoming more diverse and accessible.

Aaron Mueller

Aaron is currently a 7th grade Science Teacher at Scullen Middle School in Indian Prairie School District 204, Naperville, Illinois.  He has been teaching for 24 years and began Modeling in 2012-13. Within that time, he taught 8th grade for 14 years and a brief experience teaching high school Biology, Anatomy & Physiology, and Botany after graduating with a BS in Secondary Education – Broad Field Sciences from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. Aaron earned his MS Ed in Administration and Educational Leadership in 2006 from Northern Illinois University.

Aaron’s experience in Modeling Workshops has been through Biology, Mechanics, and Middle School.  In 2017, Aaron became a certified Modeling Facilitator and has worked with the staff at Wheaton-Warrenville South HS Modeling Institute with Middle School Modeling.  He has also facilitated multiple in district K-12 professional development workshops. He is a NSTA 3D Professional Development Cadre member, and a Lifetime Member of AMTA.  In 2017 and 2022, Aaron was selected as an Illinois finalist for grades 7-12 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.  Aaron is passionate about Modeling with his students, colleagues, and those new to Modeling Instruction.

Kyle Oxford-Dittmer

Kyle has been teaching for 19 years now in subjects ranging from mathematics at all levels including Calculus to chemistry at all levels including AP to physics ranging form general to AP and IB. He currently teaches AP Physics 1 and 2, IB Physics HL, and Concurrent Enrollment Physics at Highland High School a public high school serving Salt Lake City School District. Kyle took his first Modeling Workshop the summer before the pandemic started and implemented modeling principles ever since including while fully remote via zoom. Kyle loves the modeling approach and has taught numerous professional development modules to district teachers over the years and will be facilitating his first official workshop this summer at Weber State University. He thinks that modeling is the best thing to happen to physics education since low friction pulleys and he would love to help facilitate the spread of modeling through new communities. Kyle feels that an important part of this is a review of the posted materials that could use some improvements for things like AP Physics as many teachers at that level would love to do what we’re doing but creating materials for different topics can be quite difficult. Kyle himself created some materials that he thinks would work great for rotational dynamics and has tried to get others to review them or post them so that new teachers could have access. It has been really difficult to get any feedback on them or to get them posted which has been a bit frustrating for the last couple of years. He would make it his goal to be super responsive to anyone’s inquiries to be sure that everyone that is trying to contribute can to the best of their abilities.

Brooke Jenkins

Brooke Jenkins is passionate about good chemistry teaching. She studied Chemistry Education and Physics teaching at BYU before going to ASU where she earned her Masters in Chemistry. Her research addressed assessment of conceptual understanding in chemistry. She has taught chemistry at the high school, community college and now at the university level. She started using modeling in 2014 at Estrella Mountain Community College and later took her first modeling workshop in 2016. For the last 6 years she has taught at Weber State University in Utah where she gets to mentor students working towards their licensure and has revamped the concurrent enrollment program. This redesign of the concurrent enrollment curriculum has allowed her to incorporate more modeling ideals into the labs and classroom. Summer 2023 Brooke attended the leadership training at ASU to prepare to host a modeling workshop in Utah which has been on her bucket list since moving away from Arizona. She is very excited that this is the year this workshop will become a reality. The opportunity to become more involved with the organization in this formal way is very appealing to Brooke. Her connections to higher education and national conferences could be used to help spread the word about Modeling Instruction. Brooke knows that she has a lot to learn still, but she is willing to do that.

Urska Manners

Urska started her teaching career when she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea, where she taught math at a local high school. After getting her Ph.D. in geophysics, she decided to return to teaching and has been teaching at international schools since 2008. Urska has primarily taught IB Physics and integrated science at the high school level, although she has a few years of experience teaching middle school as well. She took her first Modeling workshop in 2018 and has been committed to using Modeling in all of my science classes since (physics and integrated science). Urska is currently the Head of Department at her school and organized and helped lead a Intro to Modeling workshop there this November, with the goal of getting her department to adopt Modeling. She has also been working from Sheri Gates and Francis Maginn to get an ‘local’ STEMteachers organization set up for teachers outside of the US. They have been hosting monthly meet-ups and also run some online sessions geared to people outside of American time zones, but it is very much still a work in progress. Taking her first Modeling workshop not only opened Urska up to a whole new world of teaching, but it also helped her find a community of like-minded teachers. Particularly as someone who lives outside of the US, opportunities to have quality professional development in the sciences are few and far between. She has benefitted greatly from all of the opportunities that AMTA has offered and I would like to help give back. In the last few years, Urska has worked with some of her international colleagues to try and spread the word about Modeling Instruction. As part of this effort, she organized a introductory workshop for teachers in South America. Urska would really like to explore how to make workshops more accessible to everyone and how to get people to stay involved with AMTA even after they take a workshop.