29 Apr Teacher Spotlight: John Messner
Our Northshore Schools Foundation Teacher Spotlight this week is on John Messner, from Bothell High School.
Mr. Messner is in his 8th year teaching social studies at BHS, and newly National Board certified. He teaches 4 classes of US history and 1 class of AP US History. In the fall he is the assistant football coach for the Cougars.
As a father of 4 children at home, all under the age of 5, balancing his teaching duties in the remote learning environment and his own children has been pretty challenging! We are inspired by Mr. Messner’s commitment to serving his students and his family during this unprecedented time which is why he is our teacher spotlight this week.
Mr. Messner meets with all of his students via Zoom during our “class time.” He says, “It is great to connect with students again and see their faces/hear their voices. I start out gathering attendance with students filling out a Google Form, asking some personal questions about how they are doing in class and in life. Google Classroom and Zoom have been great resources for my online class and presence. I don’t feel like we skipped a beat.”
Pivoting from the physical classroom to the virtual classroom, Mr. Messner has had students watching historical videos on YouTube and completing viewing guides digitally. Students will read an article on the Cold War and have a class discussion via Zoom. Messner also does his own lectures and posts those on YouTube on his own channel he created during this time. His class has completed a paper on an event of the Cold War and is currently working on, a paper on a Civil Rights Leader. Next week, students will have an online discussion during class about who their Civil Rights leader is and how they impacted American history. There are periodic short quizzes assigned to students during class via Google Forms. They will finish this school year learning about the Vietnam War and talking about America’s more recent conflicts.
His AP US History class is preparing for their online-only test on May 15th. Messner reports: “Students are nervous but are really working hard to do their best to achieve a high score. We review content during class sessions and go through what will be on their AP test because it has been modified to only 45 minutes to write on one Documents-Based Question. Through Zoom, we have walked through their rubric, question samples, and testing strategies to be successful on this test at home to determine if they receive college credit or not.”
One of the biggest challenges for students during this time is connecting with teachers and peers. In an effort to create more connections, the last couple of minutes of class are spent opening up mics to hear from students which leads to encouraging chit-chat. About 90% of his students in each of his 5 classes are attending the Zoom meetings! Messner says: “I am constantly astounded by their level of engagement and participation. Just yesterday, a student in my 2nd-period class said that US History was his favorite Zoom session! And he is connecting every week from Enumclaw!”
John Messner has received previous grants from Northshore Schools Foundation to support guest speakers in his classroom, including this year an expert on World War I and a descendent of a Holocaust survivor and a scholarship to support his work to complete his National Board Teacher Certification.
We are so impressed with this balancing act and commitment to students, community, and family! Please join us in applauding this amazing BHS teacher. Mr. Messner, we are grateful for all you are doing for NSD!
If you know of a teacher in our district who is doing creative and innovative education in our new virtual classroom platform that we should know about please email their info to julie@nsdfoundation.org
