About me

Greetings my fellow 24-25 cohort! My name is Dan, from Chicago USA! I’ve been teaching abroad since 2010, and calling Guangzhou China my current home. Guangzhou, formally known as Canton, is the biggest city megalopolises of the Greater Bay Area, which encompasses Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Macau as well. I’m currently teaching at ISA Liwan, which is a new school that just opened in 2022. Our school is rapidly growing and continously improving our facilities, and our new Fab Lab is what drove me to take this course!

I was a homeroom teacher for many years previously, but switched over to being the primary (PYP) STEM teacher in 2023. While being a homeroom teacher, I taught math and science as well as English, but I always seemed to incorporate technology and creativity as much as possible. This lead me to switching to be the STEM teacher. In my first year teaching STEM, we did not have a funtional/student friendly area for making. This resulted in all of the STEM classes being in a very normal classroom, where the students mastered the British/Singaporean science learning outcomes, but didn’t have many opportunities to develop their creativity or innovation.

This is why I am so excited for the 24-25 year. I am confident that this course will allow me to grow my confidence in using all the tools that our Fab Lab has to offer. We have multiple laser cutters, 3D printers, vinyl cutters, woodworking benches and tools, as well as legos and robotics. Our school’s garden has also been approved for student use, so I would love to be able to make things that can help support growing and beautifying that area, which is currently a well plotted field of dirt. I hope this website displays lots of ideas and I hope to hear your feedback on how we can improve it!

Visit this website to see my work!

Previous work

I spent many years in Guangzhou teaching English to non-native English speakers. I switched over to being a homeroom teacher in 2017. Since then I have tried to use technology to enhance learning as much as possible. While my primary focus was on teaching English, math, and history to students in kindergarten and primary school, my favorite focus was always teaching science!​

Project A

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