Chad Lyon
History Teacher
Applicant
As a science teacher, my class aims to provide students with both knowledge and an understanding of the scientific approach to problem-solving. The critical skills that students develop in my science class include the ability to formulate hypotheses, design and conduct experiments to test them, and evaluate outcomes. Students are also expected to use basic laboratory equipment safely and efficiently, make sensible estimates, take accurate measurements, and make scientifically supported arguments.
In addition to these skills, students are encouraged to connect the content of the classroom and laboratory to real-life situations, which helps them develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. By creating these connections, the classroom becomes more constructive and inquiry-driven, which leads to a better understanding of how science relates to everyday life experiences. These critical skills are the most important because they can be applied to different content areas.
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
Data Analysis in Marketing
Market research, like scientific research, must meet specific criteria to produce viable results. In this lesson, the students conducted a coffee tasting study using the staff as participants. The study was double-blind, and the students maintained the controls over the experiment to ensure consistency in each participant's experience and to not confound the results. The data presented above is a preliminary analysis of the data collected during the coffee tasting.
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
Sports & Coaching
Nashville, TN
2014-2022
Stratford STEM Athletics
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.
Athletics & Coaching
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.
Stratford STEM
Science Educator
Nashville, TN
2014-2022
For the first 4 years at Stratford STEM I taught a combination of Biology, Ecology, and Environmental Science. For the final four years, I was the educator in a co-taught classroom, in the Interdisciplinary Science and Research (ISR) pathway. ISR covered topics in environmental science, cellular biology, water quality studies, cancer research, human anatomy, life sciences, and scientific research and experimentation.
This course is designed for motivated students with a demonstrated interest in the sciences and the goal of attending college after high school. The Interdisciplinary Science and Research strand is a four year research-centered, interdisciplinary program in which students learn science through an interdisciplinary science approach. The second year will focus on project-based units that help foster understanding of how to ask valid and answerable scientific questions. Students will study interdisciplinary science through real-world investigations that will challenge them to become high-level critical thinkers.
The Interdisciplinary Science & Research (ISR) Program is a partnership between the Vanderbilt Collaborative STEM Education and Outreach, formerly the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach, and Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools to enhance students’ understandings of STEM concepts and research principles and to empower teachers through scientific research. ISR course offerings are available to students at Stratford STEM Magnet High School, Hillsboro High School and John Overton High School. All courses are co-taught by a scientist-teacher team focused on individualized instruction to meet student needs. The program transitions students from understanding the basics of scientific disciplines in the first year to performing independent research in their junior and senior years. The Interdisciplinary Science & Research Program is elevating the learning and teaching of science, preparing students to solve 21st century problems. The 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.
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.
Infectious Disease: Wolbachia
The Wolbachia Project is an initiative by Vanderbilt University to study insects that may carry Wolbachia, a bacteria that affects the reproductive organs and physical characteristics of various insects. As part of this project, students research and identify the types of insects that could potentially have Wolbachia, and then collect these bugs from different locations on campus. The students then extract DNA from the insects and potentially Wolbachia bacteria. The students then use Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) to amplify the amount of DNA. Gel Electrophoresis is used to determine if there are two types of DNA in the sample. The findings are added to a national database to help reduce the spread of infectious diseases through insect vectors.
Advanced Research for Seniors
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
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.
Environmental Science 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.
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.
