Intel in Your Community Oregon

Meet Mike Geisen, National Teacher of the Year

Michael Geisen, seventh grade science instructor at Crook County Middle School was named 2008 National Teacher of the Year by President George W. Bush at a White House ceremony on April 30, 2008. Geisen is the fifty-eighth National Teacher of the Year and is serving as a full-time national and international spokesperson for education this school year. Intel is the sponsor of the Oregon Teacher of the Year program and is also sponsoring Mike Geisen's teaching salary for the 2008 – 2009 school year while Mike inspires educators around the world with his innovative approach to teaching.

"A great teacher," Geisen says, "is a unifier of ideas, a unifier of people, and a unifier of ideas with people. In my teaching I strive to bring together creativity and science, to unite my students into a community, and to help each person in this community connect with the big ideas of science."

Working to keep textbooks to, as he describes it, 97 percent colorful wall decoration and 3 percent reference materials, this seventh-grade teacher strives consistently to keep all of his curriculum, labs, assignments, activities and evaluations hand-tailored.

As Geisen explains, "By doing so, I’m able to correlate them exactly with the Oregon standards, incorporate multiple levels of cognition, revise them when needed and keep them up to date with emerging science. Some of them are based on ideas that colleagues or students have shared with me, but many of them I simply dream up while in the shower or while driving to work. However they originate, I try to put a bit of myself, a bit of Prineville, and a good dose of humor and creativity into each activity, project or assignment. In fact, students even laugh during tests in our class."

Click here to learn more about Mike Geisen and the National Teacher of the Year program.