Chad Lyon
Special Education
General Curriculum Applicant
I would love to join your team and contribute to the success of every student at Allatoona High School. I believe that my unique set of skills and qualities makes me an ideal candidate to become a Special Education teacher. I possess the ability to effectively support and empower students with special needs, as I am compassionate, patient, and understanding. Throughout my career, I have always strived to create a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students.
I possess exceptional communication and listening skills, which enable me to collaborate effectively with students, parents, and fellow professionals. My knowledge of different learning disabilities and strategies to accommodate diverse needs is constantly expanding. My classroom has always been characterized by flexibility and creativity, allowing me to adapt my teaching methods to cater to individual students. As a lifelong learner, I am committed to continuous learning and professional development, staying abreast of the latest research and best practices in special education. My passion for education has always been rooted in making a positive impact in the lives of students and helping them achieve their full potential.
Data Collection & Analysis
Before teaching Interdisciplinary Science & Research (ISR), I was confident in my ability to collect and analyze data effectively. After a year of teaching ISR, I realized that teaching the class was allowing me to grow and expand my skills in the scientific inquiry process. Before teaching Interdisciplinary Science & Research (ISR), I was confident in my ability to efficiently collect and analyze data. However, after teaching ISR for four years, I realized how much it helped me expand my skills in the scientific inquiry process. It made me more curious about the world and allowed me to view things from a scientist's perspective.
The ISR program requires students to complete 2 years of interdisciplinary science, 2 years of scientific research, and a senior year of advanced research. Our goal every year was to help students build a foundation and prepare them to conduct an independent scientific experiment for their senior year.
Every year, we had 15-20 seniors conducting research, and 90% of them needed help analyzing significant data sets and trends. We mentored and provided feedback to seniors throughout the year, starting with their initial pitch for a viable research question and hypothesis. After conducting their experiments and collecting data, the challenging task of analyzing the data followed. While collecting data was easy, the difficult part was analyzing and determining what was significant.
After helping to analyze dozens of data sets each year, I can confidently say that data analysis is one of my strongest skills. Now I observe the world with even more curiosity and through the frame of reference of a scientist.
Student Advocacy
I was hired at Stratford STEM as a Credit Recovery facilitator for my first teaching job. The class I taught was for students who had failed a class and needed to make up the credit to stay on track to graduate. Although it was challenging, this assignment allowed me to build relationships with students with a wide range of capabilities and needs, and tutor them as well. Most students in this class had IEPs or 504 plans and required various accommodations. For three years, I was able to succeed in this class by working closely with the students' SPED case workers, general education teachers, and parents who were involved. Eventually, I was assigned a role as a graduation coach for a cohort of seniors and juniors, helping increase the graduation rate by 2-3% each year.
Interdisciplinary Science & Research (ISR) was unique class as it was designed with extremely high rigor, yet ample support and scaffolding were provided to differentiate each lesson and unit. The course didn't have any academic threshold for enrollment, and we had several students with IEPs, 504s as well as a myriad of learning styles in each class. As the post-doc and I were the curriculum designers, we could make accommodations and modifications effectively to help students succeed. With patience and understanding, we were able to guide a young lady on the autism spectrum through the senior research project. Early on, she was quite stressed about the prospects of conducting a scientific experiment and the outputs required. For each step, we were able to break down the process into small parts and goals, eventually leading to a completed research study on a psychological phenomenon called, the anchoring bias.
High School Experience
Stratford STEM was an amazing experience during the eight years I spent teaching and coaching there. I felt honored when the yearbook team chose me to be at the center of the collage on the cover of our 2019 yearbook. It was fitting to share the cover with so many of the students and staff who I considered my family. Throughout the years, just like a family we supported each other in academics, sports, extracurricular events, and much more.
Psychology
Psychology has been my passion since my first college course. I always strive to stay updated with the latest books, research articles, and case studies in the field. Though I only have a minor in psychology, my understanding of behavioral science is extensive, covering various aspects. Initially, I focused on theories of creativity and intelligence, social psychology, and learning styles. Later on, I shifted my focus to behavioral economics, which gave me profound insights into how the design of things can influence human choices and outcomes. I then applied these insights to the structure of my classroom and curriculum, as well as to the communication and interactions with my students.
Since the birth of my first child, I have been focused on gaining a deeper understanding of learning and how to apply a combination of learning theories to support learners and their differences. I have now begun to investigate the ongoing research into the advancements in special education and evidence-based practices.
Collaboration
Collaborating with other teachers, students and stakeholders has been a passion of mine since I started my career in education. ISR is a co-taught class with a post-doc and an educator collaborating together to develop engaging curriculum. We developed the curriculum for this class by using our collective expertise, the interests of our students and the needs of future scientific workforce. The pollinator garden was a unique collaboration with the Tennessee Environmental Council, TVA, community members, and school administration that has resulted in 25,000 square feet of turf grass being converted to pollinator gardens.
Coaching & Athletics
As both a player and coach, I always rely on methods of performance training and practice that have been scientifically proven to improve not only the performance of athletes, but also flexibility, speed, agility, and overall athleticism. When training athletes, my primary focus is on developing functional strength and flexibility to help them avoid injury. Once a solid foundation has been established, I then work on building speed, agility, quickness, and power to help them perform at a higher level.
Technology
I have developed my web development skills to a great extent, with a primary focus on non-code-based solutions. During the pandemic, when we had to implement remote learning, I realized that many of my students would struggle without the support they received in school. To enhance the curriculum and make it accessible to those learners, I started using Square Space as my web development platform. It has been a great experience, and I continue to expand my knowledge and skills in this field. I’ve always enjoyed art and creating graphic designs for athletes, classrooms, coworkers, and for the enjoyment of creating. Canva is an amazing tool that has an education account all students can access. The Generative AI text-to-image and text-to-voice could be exceptional assistive technology for students who have specific needs and accommodations.
Marketing Portfolio
Kell High School (Marietta, GA)
2023-24 SY (Part-Time)
Marketing is a unique pathway in education that requires an interdisciplinary approach to be successful. Knowledge of science, math, language arts, history, art, and social skills are all essential for effective business and marketing initiatives.
My goal for the level one course is to establish a foundation of transferable skills through creative expression, collaboration and effective presentation skills.
Enhanced Curriculum
Developing a curriculum with dynamic and engaging lessons is important to keep our students interested and motivated. Canva is an excellent tool that allows for interactive live links which can be updated in real-time. It works seamlessly with CTLS to deliver highly engaging materials and resources.
Generative AI
Generative AI is a state-of-the-art tool that has tremendous potential for students. Being able to effectively interact and prompt Large Language Models (LLMs) is going to be one of the most valuable skill sets for future employees. Teaching students how to convert text into images is an introductory step that showcases the power and usefulness of descriptive language. This will become even more useful in the near future as Generative AI advances in creating videos and images
Digital Design
Transferable skills are a fundamental part of marketing education, and one of my objectives this year was to teach students how to utilize Canva and Adobe Express to create digital designs and dynamic presentations. For most students, presenting in front of a class is already a daunting task, but having a great presentation can alleviate some of the pressure, and the collaborative features within Canva and Express are exceptionally valuable for group projects.
Virtual Business Enhancement
Virtual Business is a valuable marketing education tool, but it may not be suitable for all learning styles. To better accommodate students with different learning styles, I have enhanced the reading material with more visual and multi-modal resources. Check out the example for promotions below.
The objective of the level 3 course is to revive a school business that has been closed for two years. The business faced certain challenges such as storage, hours, and location, which made it difficult to sell traditional products. Therefore, the school store would primarily focus on providing services with some niche CTAE products, such as 3D printed or laser-etched items from engineering or apparel from Graphic Design. Due to the unique open layout of the store and minimal storage, additional products will be sold through drop shipping and pre-orders with area business partners. Additionally, the Marketing Management class would establish media communications teams for each school sport and club.
Sports Media Teams
The Marketing Management class established media teams for each sport to create graphic designs, enhance bulletin boards, and improve the user experience on the VNN athletics website. The designs were cross-utilized, and an ongoing collaboration with Graphic Design was established to maintain cohesive sports branding in the school and on social media.
Bullpen Revival
Kell’s school store, The Bullpen, has been closed for two years. The Marketing and Management class and I developed a plan to reopen the Bullpen along with a renovation show called, The Bullpen Revival Series. The series is a collaboration with the Audio-Video department and Marketing, to create a promotion that will generate excitement and bring awareness to the project. The Marketing Management class also collaborated with Woodstock Coffee Co. to conduct a coffee tasting to determine which roast would become the Longhorn Drip. We had a double-blind study and surveyed 40 staff members.
Stratford STEM
Science Educator
Nashville, TN
2014-2022
Stratford STEM Highlights
My 8 years at Stratford provided me with many profound and rewarding experiences that led to my growth as an educator, mentor, coach, and community leader.
