K-12 Teacher Mentoring

Meltem Ceylan Alibeyoğlu

Meltem Ceylan Alibeyoğlu studied Mathematics at Middle East Technical University. She defended her Ph.D. thesis in environmental sciences at Boğazici University, İstanbul. Alibeyoğlu worked as a mathematics teacher, project coordinator, PYP Coordinator, and middle school academic coordinator at Darüşşafaka Educational Institutions. Since 2022, she has been working as a Research and Development Coordinator. She is a creative drama leader and a part-time instructor at Boğaziçi University and MEF University. She is a member of the Systems Thinking Association of Turkey and played an active role in the establishment and work of many non-governmental organizations.

Emre Göktepe

Emre Göktepe is a retired Industrial Engineer working for the infusion of ST/SD into K-12 education. He is one of the founders of the Systems Thinking Association in Türkiye. Beginning in 1988, his knowledge of systems thinking and system dynamics is mostly self-taught.

Presentation summary: The presentation will share the experiences gained since 2014 by the Turkish Systems Thinking Association in mentoring K-12 teachers, pre-service teachers and academics. Mentoring is a part of the education-mentoring-implementation-sharing cycle carried out by the association. After providing information about this cycle, the principles that are considered to be effective in mentoring will be shared with examples.

Steven Roderick

Steve Roderick is a retired high school biology teacher from the United States. He was introduced to system dynamics as an undergraduate and used it in his classrooms throughout a 40+ year career. Since retirement, he has been working with the Concord Consortium, an educational research non-profit that focuses on the use of technology in STEM classrooms. Steve’s interest in SD at the pre-college level has grown out of his own history with system dynamics as well as the deep and creative thinking he has seen in his students who have been through the process of building models. At the Concord Consortium, his work has been primarily with development of the SageModeler software and surrounding curriculum. Funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, SageModeler was created as an “on-ramp” to more complex modeling and as a vehicle for encouraging dynamic thinking, without the need to understand and write algebraic equations.

Presentation summary: This presentation will be about mentoring teachers who are looking to bring project based learning and system modeling into their science curriculum. Examples from a couple of middle school projects will be used to spark conversation and questions.

Greg Orpen

After graduating from Trinity College (B.S. in Biology) and the Harvard Graduate School of Education (M.Ed. in Teaching & Learning), Greg came to Innovation Academy in the summer of 2000. Since that time he has taught at both the middle and high school, coordinated the school’s Systems Thinking program, and was a founding teacher of IACS’s high school expansion. From 2008-2013 he served as High School Principal.

In 2013 Greg was selected as the third Head of School since IACS was founded in 1996. In this capacity, Greg has helped IACS reach its enrollment maximum as well as lead the school through two successful charter renewals. Complimenting his professional work at IACS, Greg serves on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. In 2022, Greg completed his Ed.D at UMass Lowell’s Leadership in Schooling program. His favorite student-centered experiences at IACS have been advising at both the middle and high school, and sharing his ever-diminishing athletic skills.

Presentation summary: A Discussion of the Forrester Fellows ST/SD mentoring program at Innovation Academy Charter School (grades 5-12)