After graduating from Princeton in 2013 and working in healthcare analytics consulting for a year and a half, I was ecstatic that TPP welcomed me back during the spring of 2015. Teaching four sections of college prep chemistry at a local, public high school provided me with the unique opportunity to hone individual lessons. My cohort of sophomores and juniors was highly energetic, and they pushed me to be the best instructor that I could be. I especially remember our lessons on chemistry in careers during my original unit plan. After allowing my students to follow through on out-of-…

One of my favorite parts during my time at Teacher Prep was getting to know the other student teachers in my cohort. We formed a great community where we all felt comfortable sharing our experiences and giving moral support.

Since completing her student teaching at the East Brunswick Middle School during Fall 2020, Marisa has been working as a Special Education case manager at a charter school in Washington DC. She is also enrolled in a full-time remote MAT program with NYU.

I loved my time at Teacher Prep, everything.  First, all the people were fabulous encouragers.  Ruth Wilson, particularly, had to encourage me through a tough student teaching experience.  I got my first teaching job through Teacher Prep, overseas at Shiplake College, and that was a transformative year.  Then I taught in the South Bronx for 5 years, a public school and then a private school.  During that time I started volunteering at Operation Exodus, an educational nonprofit, first on Saturdays, then once or twice a week on weekdays.  I started working at…

I graduated from Princeton in 1975; majored in psychology; and obtained a certificate from the Teacher Preparation Program. I was the first Mexican-American (Chicana) woman at Princeton. There were Mexican-American men before me, but I was the first woman.  I was really nervous about starting my student teaching in a fifth grade class at Princeton Middle School. I wondered . . . will I be able to keep my students engaged; will I be able to redirect unruly students and thus maintain classroom control; will I be able to get through the course material for each subject so that I can stay…

I am the Vice President of Academics at Catapult Learning where I oversee curriculum development, product creation, and instructional excellence.  I started my career in the classroom as a high school social studies teacher in Montgomery, NJ. After teaching in Montgomery, I joined Teach For America and taught social studies at Camden High School in Camden, NJ.

In 2007, I left the classroom and began working in curriculum development at Kaplan K12 Curriculum Solutions. I started as a Social Studies Curriculum Manager partnering with school districts to create standards-aligned…

Teacher Prep was one of the highlights of my Princeton experience (and one of the toughest). It gave me a whole new way of thinking about the world around me and laid the foundation for the leader I've become today. I have especially fond memories of my student teaching and taking the kids on an overnight immersive German field trip.  My experience with Teacher Prep opened the door to how I wanted to be in the service of those around me. It helped me earn a teaching spot abroad and inspired my graduate studies, which ultimately led me into Federal service. It shaped the roles I've had…

I've had a somewhat scattered career.  I've been a teacher for approximately 14 of the 40 years since college, teaching Math & Computer Science in HS, college, and to professionals.  After two not especially successful years as a HS math teacher, I enrolled in a math Ph.D. program. I was a T/A for most of that, often remedial classes to underprepared first-year students. Won two awards. Three years of non-tenure-track college teaching, hit a bad job market, and that was that. Moved over to software engineering, including two years overseas training new hires at a large…

I always have had a passion for teaching, but did not know how it would manifest. The academic world is one that focuses quite a bit on teaching after the terminal degree, but spends little to no time on training or the study of pedagogy when in pursuit of most PhDs. I was not aware of this when I decided to join TPP as I merely wanted to keep my options open, but in retrospect, I couldn't have chosen a better preparation for my position today as a tenure track assistant professor at City University of New York-LaGuardia, community college. Higher education in the United States will be…

The Teacher Prep program was instrumental in helping me succeed as a new teacher. I learned so many helpful strategies and techniques for classroom instruction and testing. I also walked away with an incredibly helpful understanding of what was then the latest groundbreaking research into the capabilities of middle schoolers.  I taught high school English and Histoy for five years immediately after graduation and then started a career in journalism.  In the last few years, I've transitioned to publishing.

I have to start with a negative... which leads to many positives! My student teaching experience was a disaster for me. I passed and was certified, but realized that despite being a natural teacher and believing in the power of education to change lives, I'm not suited to the group dynamics of a classroom... and bureaucracy is an anathema to me.

After graduating, I went into educational publishing, then educational software publishing, then into psychometrics (the measurement of human behavior). 

I had a child who was diagnosed at 7 with dyslexia and ADD... and became…