President Obama Honors 麻豆精品视频Alumna for Her Teaching
Robin O'Brien 鈥14 recently earned the national Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.
From left, Megan Smith, U.S. chief technology officer; Robin O鈥橞rien; and France A. C貌rdova, Ph.D., director of the National Science Foundation
麻豆精品视频 alumna Robin O鈥橞rien 鈥14 recently earned the national Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching from U.S. President Barack Obama. O'Brien, who earned an M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from FAU, is currently a school district resource teacher. She plans and models curriculum and provides professional development to secondary mathematics teachers across the district.
鈥淭eaching may be my second career, but was always my first passion,鈥 said O鈥橞rien. 鈥淲hat I had not realized when I began this journey, though, was that being a teacher makes me a lifelong student. The Presidential Award is validation and recognition for those teachers who reflect on their practice and strive to continually learn and improve upon it. I am honored to be considered part of such an elite group of educators. Trying to make mathematics useful and fun for my students is a joy to work at every day.鈥
O鈥橞rien has been an educator for eight years, with her first six years at Royal Palm Beach Community High School and Seminole Ridge Community High School in Loxahatchee. While in the classroom, she taught a range of math courses from Algebra I to Advanced Placement Statistics along with tutorials on Saturdays and afterschool. To get the students out of their seats and working together, she used many activities, including聽algebra tiles and "chains" where students must link the next appropriate item to the last. O鈥橞rien also聽initiated a summer precalculus program to increase AP Calculus completion and wrote curriculum to support remedial classes. She served as department chair for four years, a student council faculty advisor, and was honored by her students to be inducted in their National Honor Society chapter.
O鈥橞rien received a B.S. in business administration from the University of Delaware and completed a post-baccalaureate education program at West Chester University. While teaching, she earned a Reading Endorsement and, in May 2014, completed a M.Ed. at FAU.
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