A lot of students may remember logging onto Zoom during online school every other day—sometimes just a little early—and waking up to a welcoming atmosphere and a daily mental health check-in form. Kind, caring, and considerate—words exemplified by someone none other than Ms. Mai, a seventh grade Goggles and Lab Coats and eighth grade science teacher who currently works at Foothills Middle School (FMS).

Ms. Mai has always been flexible with her classes, presenting her students with a variety of options to help cater to each of their strengths. Whether it was writing essays or taking a written assessment, her virtual testing styles were always flexible. She was also extremely versatile in the way she teaches her lessons in a virtual sense; one day she would make them visual for people who learn better that way, and other days she might make them oral, but she always accommodated each learning style.

Another thing that was appreciated by her students during online school were her Mental Health Mondays, which were intended to ease students into the coming week with a calming day of rest. On these days, Ms. Mai would organize Blookets, fun quiz-like games. These were also a very exciting aspect of her lessons. Although the classes she taught still had to learn about science, she made it a much more thrilling experience. She would also create day-to-day warm-up questions so that she could get to know her students better.

Ms. Mai also made her classes more fun and interactive by always allowing input from her students, such as allowing them to participate in ClassCraft, an enjoyable website for learning and playing as different characters to complete “quests”, which were class(room) tasks. The purpose of it was to create incentive for her students to participate and a fun approach, as well as  to give the class a sense of community. 

Besides exceptional teaching abilities, Ms. Mai also makes an effort to make a connection with her students. Each morning during virtual school, she provided her students with a Google form to complete with questions about how their day was going and how they were feeling, taking into consideration her students’ emotions, most especially during the difficult times caused by COVID-19.

Every day, Ms. Mai transformed science into a class that was entertaining, intriguing, and ultimately, enjoyable. From Ms. Mai’s personality to her overall excellent teaching abilities, Ms. Mai is one of the teachers who made FMS something worth remembering.