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H-F teacher Michelle Kozik awarded top honor from national biology association

​​​​​​Homewood-Flossmoor High School teacher Michelle Kozik working with students. She has been named Illinois Biology Teacher of the Year. (Provided photo)

The National Association of Biology Teachers has recognized Homewood-Flossmoor High School teacher Michelle Kozik as the 2019-20 Outstanding Illinois Biology Teacher of the Year.

Kozik has been a member of the faculty for 15 years. She was selected for this honor for her dedication, commitment and teaching pedagogy and for managing a classroom with positive energy and enthusiasm that creates a dynamic learning environment.

​​​​​​Homewood-Flossmoor High School teacher Michelle Kozik working with students. She has been named Illinois Biology Teacher of the Year. (Provided photo)

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she will be part of a virtual ceremony in November during the association’s annual convention in Baltimore. Kozik will join winners from the 50 states, Canada, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and territories.

She received a complimentary year’s membership from the National Association of Biology Teachers and gift certificates from Carolina Biological Supply Company. The company has been providing teachers with Next Generation Science Standards information.

Over the years, Kozik has received positive feedback from students who appreciate that she is very organized and efficient and gives prompt feedback to quizzes and tests.  

As a teacher, she considers herself “approachable and I’m willing to work with students and meet them where they’re at.”

Kozik said she chose to major in biology at St. Xavier University because of her Reavis High School anatomy/physiology teacher who was “one of the smartest teachers I ever had,” and because biology, unlike other subjects, was a field that would challenge her.

Kozik said she wants her students to know that learning by doing is important, especially in life sciences. Students do need to memorize vocabulary and important facts, but she also wants students to assess and recognize the changes they find in their lab work.

“When I started 15 years ago, I would give students directions to follow and students would all arrive at the same result and the same conclusion,” she explained.

“The last few years I’ve modified my labs to where I’ll present a question and some materials and students design their own lab. Different lab teams are going to come up with different data and different conclusions. My focus really has been getting students to connect their evidence to their reasoning or their data,” Kozik said.

“A lot of times students are so used to the labs where everyone’s getting the same answer and arriving at the same conclusion that they think that when they don’t get that they’re wrong. 

“My whole point is when you’re doing science there’s no wrong data,” she stressed. “You can still interpret that data on how does it support or refute your claim.”

With H-F starting the school year with remote learning, Kozik said online simulations and virtual dissections will make it easier to present material that requires lab time.

She recently taught freshman biology in summer school.

“I attempted to teach the course the same way I would teach it had we been in the classroom with the exception of the hands-on labs. I basically followed the same agenda that I typically follow when we’re in the classroom,” she said.

Biology is the study of life and living things. Kozik started her summer class with a discussion of the COVID-19 virus to raise the curiosity of the 20 students to consider a virus that’s impacting their lives.

“Are viruses considered living things or not? I used news articles, some coronavirus data and graphs from online sources to pique their interest and look at it more from a science standpoint,” she said. The discussion gave her 20 summer school students the chance to learn about and understand a virus from current data. 

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