A stylized orange captical letter B.
A stylized orange captical letter B.

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A picture of my face, taken in September 2022. I am white. I have thick, black eyebrows a prominant nose. I am facing the camera and smiling. I am in a well-lit, forrested area during the middle of the day. I am wearing thin-rimmed, semi-rectangular glasses. My hair is long, glowing with the sun at its ends, and spills across my shoulder down to my stomach. My eyes are a dark brown.

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Hello and Welcome!

I am Integra Bardessono (my students call me Teacher, or Teacher B) and here you will find information about myself, my pedagogy, and some of the teaching resources I have gathered through my time as an educator. My hope is that, long term, other educators and students may take value from these resources as I compile them. I maintain this webpage myself, and generally update it only once or twice a year, so it's a constant work in progress, and it is currently thin on content. That said, if you notice any critical errors feel free to reach out!

A Brief History

I am a lifelong resident of Napa and started my teaching Career in 2022. I am happy to be giving back to my community as a teacher, and I strive to provide opportunities for students to learn and practice science in a safe and caring environment. In my free time I enjoy yoga, swimming, video games, coding, and a lot of reading and writing. I have self-published a science fiction novel online, and occasionally write reviews of the media (mostly books) I have enjoyed (or despised). However, it has been a while since I have had the time to sit down and compose a thoughtful critique. I am a mostly self-taught computer programmer, and have so far completed two micro-games as part of a yearly 48hr gamejam. I one day hope to publish a full-length video game.

If you would like more of a sense of myself as a teacher, please explore the other tabs and modules on the site! For any education-related questions, I can be reached via Email.

Philosophy

I believe that education should be empowering and that learning should be gratifying. I want all my students to be able to explore science in meaningful and relevant ways, and approach the problems they face in and out of the classroom with curiosity and confidence. To this end, I understand that the science classroom is much more than the theories discussed within, it is driven by the relationships between students and teacher. I want my classrooms to feel like a home space, where students are able to express themselves genuinely and can trust me and each other to listen to what they have to say. When students and teachers trust each other, the exploration of the natural world and deep science concepts becomes enlightening, not mystifying, and students learn to approach difficult problems with confidence.

I regard the practice of pedagogy in the same manner I regard the practice of science; in that it is an iterative process and never a finished product. I am always keeping my students in mind as I adapt lessons to the specific tone of each class I teach. I am constantly working to understand and redress the barriers that keep students from succeeding, whether that be at home, in school, or in my classroom. To that end, I work to creatve inquiry-driven activities and center my students' voices so that they may burgeon into confident adults and lifelong learners.

Information on the specific subjects I am teaching (or have taught) can be found here.

Experience

Before I became a teacher, I spent over five years working with and helping to educate students at the high school and middle school levels; I worked on and off as a math tutor after I graduated from California Polytechnic State University in 2016, and I worked for three years as a camp instructor at a AstroCamp, VA, where I had the opportunity to provide for campers with a wide range of interests and needs. As a consequence, I gained a great deal of experience developing curricula and presenting science concepts to a large range of learners, from 4th grade up through high school.After my time at AstroCamp, I decided to become a teacher, and in 2022 I graduated from Sonoma State University with credentials in physics and chemistry.

During my time working as a student teacher, I had the chance to work and teach in both physics and chemistry classes, as well as participate occasionally in a smattering of other subjects such as biology, mathematics, and computer science. Throughout all my experiences, I have found myself to be patient and curious in my teaching. Watching students find insight and moments of revelation as they grapple with science concepts has been a repeated joy in my career, and I am always looking for new ways to help students make those connections as they engage with the natural world.

Professional Development

The Writing Revolution is a an organization and book advocating and developing resources for increased literacy and writing in the classroom. I found their course incredibly valuable, and their materials immediately useful. I recieved a certification for completing their PD session in late 2023.

Academic Projects and Papers (Cal Poly, SLO)

Above are some of my college projects. All four papers were written using LaTeX. The first link is my senior project thesis. The second is an anlysis of solar cell performance, written as the final report of an upper-division lab I took at Cal Poly. The latter two were submitted as entries for the international Mathematical Modeling Competition. My team recived an Honorable Mention (top 40%) for our 2015 entry and a Meritorious (top 8%) for our 2016 entry. I did all of the coding needed in the first and fourth paper, and also produced all the graphics therein (unless otherwise sourced).

Note: The papers above were composed before I made my transition. I am still very pround of my work, but as such I have redacted my old name.