Jodi Eyer is a fourth-grade teacher at Jackson Heights Elementary School.
What do you do to engage your students? What makes your learning environment unique?
In my classroom I like to include a lot of activities to engage my students. I’ve found that the more they experience the more they learn new concepts and discover new things. We take on project-based learning assignments, such as one involving force and design to create hurricane-proof houses. Each engineering team planned and built a cardboard/paper house that would hold up during a hurricane (their classroom fan on high for 1 minute during the final wind load test).
Why do you think it’s important to teach the way you do?
It’s important that I teach the way I do because I am always learning from my students. I learn new ways to teach them to help them learn new concepts. Each group of students come with new challenges and new ideas.
What do you feel is the most exciting thing about teaching?
One of the most exciting things about teaching is getting my students excited about learning. Some times it’s a fun science experiment, a good story or a silly story or a game that will get students enthusiastic about learning and wanting to learn more.
Describe your best lesson ever.
One of my favorite teaching events is science experiment day. This is a day where 100 fourth graders get together and rotate around to 10 different science stations doing different hands on science experiments. I get to work with my colleagues as we create an exciting day of science fun for our 4th graders. I also really enjoy teaching the Science Unit on the States of Matter. I have an experiment with every lesson that I teach in that unit. So there is a lot of discovery and learning.
Tell us a little more about yourself.
I graduated from Plattsburgh High School, and got my undergraduate degree from SUNY Potsdam. My graduate degree is from SUNY Plattsburgh. I’ve been teaching for 21 years, with 19 of those being here in Glens Falls.