Greetings Earthlings! My name is Nicole Mack. I am currently a middle school science teacher at IDEAL school in MPS. I am in my 8th year of teaching middle school and absolutely love it! I am in graduate school at UWMilwaukee pursuing my Masters of Curriculum and Instruction in Reading with an additional Reading Specialist License and will graduate in December of 2018!
I have been in my role as a science educator for 3 years and I am beginning to absolutely love what I do! In addition to obtaining my Masters in Reading Education, I am thinking about pursuing some additional science credits or a science license. One of my future goals with my Reading Specialist license is to focus on literacy in the content areas. I am constantly challenging myself to bring more literacy into my lessons and my students lives. One way I have done that is the inclusion of the Discovery Education Techbook. The techbook uses multi-modal literacy because it asks my students to read, view videos, work on collaborative group projects, and view images that allow them to analyze their science content. The Discovery Education Techbook is a great resource for any science or STEM-focused classroom.
This past year my school was chosen to be a part of a STEM grant in MPS. With that grant, I was also chosen to be a Teacher Stem Ambassador (TSA). With this role, I am involved writing STEM-based curriculum for middle school science classrooms in MPS. This has really allowed me to improve my own teaching because I get to work with a team of great educators writing about something they love as much as I do! I look forward to improving literacy in my science classroom through grad school, being a member of the TSA team, and collaborating with fellow educators.
Journey to Space with Mack 
Hello Nicole! I enjoyed reading your intro a lot. As a student, I have always been into science but have never had a super passionate teacher. You seem to be very passionate about what you do and are learning to love teaching the subject! I also am interested to read your blog throughout the semester because I am still currently working toward my teaching degree. Other than a few field experiences I have not started teaching yet. I look forward to following your blog!
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Hey Nicole! before switching my major to special education, I used to be Biomedical Sciences, so I love science and think its great you are so interested in that subject. Since you said you like space, have you been to the planetarium here on campus? I was able to go to it with the kids at the daycare I work at and they absolutely loved seeing all the cool things about space. I’m looking forward to reading more about your experiences with your class and with the progress with STEM!
-Marley
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Great rising Nicole,
I can feel your passion for science and teaching through your blog. Science is a touch one to teach in middle school, and I am looking forward to seeing your journey over the semester. Good luck and I can not wait to see how you’re implementing more reading into your program.
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Hi Nicole,
I am super excited to read your blog! I find space so interesting and also a little bit scary. Your passion for teaching comes through in your writing and your students are very lucky to have you! 🙂
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