Noyce Scholar Profile
Amanda Davis
Undergraduate major or graduate field of study: Secondary Education, Earth and Space Science
Subject area(s) and grade level teaching focus: Earth and Space Science, grades 6-12
Category of scholarship/fellowship:
Noyce Scholar
Name of Noyce institution:
Arizona State University STARR Program
Current academic or teaching status:
Junior
School and school district:
Internship, Tempe Accelerated High School
Background:
I am a native Arizonan and spent my entire K-12 education in the Paradise Valley School District. I am currently an undergraduate at Arizona State University (ASU) and am in my first year of the teaching program.
Why do you want to teach:
I want to teach to inspire the youth. I love Earth Science and want to spread that to others through teaching. I remember high school quite vividly and all the teachers who made a difference in my life. I hope that one day, one of my students will look back and say, “Miss Davis was my favorite teacher.” If only one student out of my whole career can say that, then I feel I have accomplished my job.
Describe a memorable teaching experience:
Last semester I had a wonderful geology teacher at ASU who inspired me to want to teach even more than I already had. He knows how to engage an individual’s thought process and get her thinking. For example, on one trip in the Field, I had asked him to take a look at my map to see if my drawing of the geological sequence was going in the right direction. He looked at it, and with some hesitation, asked “well, how do you feel about it?” I feel like that was a great question. He wasn’t going to let me get the answer too easily. He made me start to think about my reasoning of how I got to my conclusions and made me justify it all with an explanation. That to me is the epitome of a great teacher, never giving up the answers so quickly and making the student think about her or his choices.
What does the Noyce program mean to you:
Being granted the Noyce Scholarship has given me renewed confidence in myself. It is also a great help to engaging me more into my studies and granting me the opportunities to be a part of something big. For example, without this great program, I may have never known about the opportunity to attend workshops and have great resources at my fingertips.
