Kevin Hall
Former Staff
I was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica but grew up in Chicago, Illinois since the age of 5 when my family moved to the United States. I have always had a great interest in science and received my undergraduate degree in Ecology, Ethology, and Evolution from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. After this I worked in cancer research before returning to the University of Illinois U-C to complete my Master’s of Education in Curriculum and Instruction and obtain my teaching certificate. I have worked in the capacity of science teacher for the Chicago public school system as well as science instructional specialist for over 20 secondary schools within CPS. During that time I was able to work with hundreds of teachers throughout the city offering professional development, coaching, and working closely with many principals and teachers to help improve the science instruction offered at their schools My first love still continued to be classroom instruction so I decided to broaden my experience by moving into teaching internationally. The Codrington School in Barbados was my first foray into this arena and I was richly rewarded throughout my 3 years there, where I have worked as IB MYP/Diploma science teacher for grades 6-11 and IB Middle Years Program Curriculum Coordinator. For the first 2 years I was the only science teacher for this small but growing school. I literally taught all the science classes between 6th and 10th grade until we hired another teacher to cover some classes as the students moved into the IB Diploma program. During my time there I taught Integrated Science, IB Diploma Biology, and technology classes. After Barbados I moved to South America, taking a job at the Uruguayan American School in Montevideo, Uruguay. Over the course of 2 years I taught Life Science, General Science, Physical Science, General and AP Biology. It was a very interesting experience working with students that mostly spoke English as a second or even third language. My last overseas foray was in Panama City, Panama at The International School of Panama, which was a much larger school. I taught General Biology, General Physics, and IB Diploma Environmental Systems and Societies, once again to mostly ELL students. At this point I have experience teaching at every secondary grade level from 6-12th and at varied ability levels, including special education and English language learners, as well as covering just about every major science topic in some way or another. In the past years I have come up with three main focuses when it comes to my instruction: • Critical thinking • Differentiated Instruction • Increased integration of varied forms of technology and web 2.0 tools I think more about the questions that I answer for my students nowadays, because I want them to realize that they live in an age unprecedented in its availability of information. I want them to understand that they don't need me to answer every question that they have, there are many that they should get accustomed to figuring out on their own. There is nothing wrong with struggling to work through situations, answers should not always be obvious but they should be accessible.
Contact
| Email: | kevin.hall1 at northwestern.edu |
| CV: |