AACT Member Spotlight: Haley Vito



Every month AACT spotlights a passionate member who is dedicated to enhancing chemistry inside and outside the classroom. This month, we spotlight Haley Vito. She teaches chemistry at Oconee County High School in Watkinsville, Georgia.

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Haley Vito, and I have been teaching since 2015 after graduating from the University of Georgia. I am originally from the Savannah area before I moved to Athens for college where I fell in love with this part of the state. I enjoy being close to the mountains and being able to go hiking and be in nature.

In my free time I enjoy putting together Legos, reading, hiking, hunting, listening to music, and spending time with my wife and our three pups. We also enjoy traveling and have taken a few cool road trips with our pups to places like Boston and Colorado--we have a trip planned to Chicago this summer!

In my teaching career, I have taught mostly Chemistry, ranging from On-Level Chemistry to AP and IB Chemistry. I really enjoy teaching Chemistry because it is a course that allows for many methods of instruction and learning. Recently I have been doing more professional development to better create lesson plans for real-world application of Chemistry. This is becoming a passion of mine and something I am planning to continue working on throughout my career.

This past summer I spoke at the ACT2 Biennial Conference in Texas and was selected as a GIFT Fellow. This year I will be speaking at the GSTA Conference in Georgia and hope to be selected for the GIFT Fellowship as well as the VisChem Institute this year.

Why did you become a teacher? Did you always want to teach?

I have always wanted to be a teacher. Since elementary school, every decision I have made has been driven toward that goal. Although I knew I wanted to teach, I wasn't sure what content until middle school. I had a middle school teacher who made teaching science seem so cool that I decided that was what I wanted to teach. It wasn't until high school that I narrowed that down to Chemistry, again because of an awesome teacher I had.

My high school AP Environmental Science and Physical Science teacher also taught Chemistry, and I was always so jealous of the students who had her. The labs she did were always so cool that I wished I was in her class rather than my own Chemistry class. That made me realize that who teaches a course and how they teach makes a huge difference. I try to model my teaching after her and make it so students can have as good of an experience in Chemistry as possible.

What are you most proud of in your work?

Chemistry is a course that is sometimes difficult for students to learn because of how abstract it can be. Over the past few years, I have done a lot of work in trying to lessen those misconceptions that make learning Chemistry so difficult and I believe some of these methods really do help. The professional development that I have been doing has mostly been focused on student misconceptions and understanding.

Using a rolling feedback system to allow students to get feedback when they feel it necessary has been, in my opinion, the best thing I have done to help student achievement in my classroom. It not only gives them feedback on the content but also helps teach them how to review and self-reflect and refocus their efforts for a class. Students with a good understanding are not required to complete work just for the sake of getting a grade and students who need the extra help can feel free to make mistakes since it won't affect their grade. This system is something I have been developing for a few years and I have seen a drastic difference in student understanding as well as motivation.

How do you monitor the progress of your students? How do you ensure underperformers excel?

Self-driven practices and small, in-class quizzes that are not graded help my students the most. When my students work on these activities they are able to focus on what they struggled on rather than worry about what grade they are going to get on the activity. This allows me to see who my high fliers are as well as those who are struggling some. After graded assessments, I will reach out to those with misconceptions and suggest which of the practices could help them better understand the content. When we learn new content or need to revisit previous content that will be used later, I usually do a short opener quiz at the beginning of class. They know this is no penalty so they can try their best, they can write out questions to me, or they can write reminders to themselves. While they are working on individual work later in the period, I will review the opener quiz and provide feedback. These things help me group students based on achievement and understanding moving forward so I can try and get a student with good understanding paired with one who doesn't.

What is your approach to building a meaningful relationship with your students and their parents?

Being honest, when students and parents know that you are being honest they respect you more. Honesty, especially when discussing student achievement, strengthens the relationship between the teacher and both the student and parent. It can be hard to reach out to a parent and discuss something difficult about their student's performance but by doing so you show them just how much their student means to you as a teacher.

What do you do to remain current and bring the latest science into the classroom?

I love to learn so reading about science and listening to science podcasts are a good way to stay current. Sometimes the topics I am reading or listening to will relate to content so I will try and include pieces of what I learned into the lesson.

What fuels your passion for science and teaching?

Curiosity, I am a naturally curious person and am always looking for new ways to teach and to learn myself. I love reading about new science and teaching methods, I am a nerd like that. Looking for new methods of teaching and seeing if they work for my students is something I thoroughly enjoy. I love writing lessons and finding new information out in the real world to provide context for what students are learning is something that drives me to learn more about both science and teaching as much as possible. I like changing my lessons so they include more real-world applications of the content so that it gives students context for how they could use what they are learning once they leave high school.

In three words, what would your students say they learned from you?

Make good choices!