Mr. Allen Sears

Physics. B.A., University of Illinois at Chicago. He began at the Academy in 1999. Mr. Sears first taught physics at Elmwood Park High School and one year later came to ICJA with a vision to provide a top-notch physics experience for all students. He is deeply connected with the research-based reform movement in physics education. In 2010 he graduated from Arizona State University with a M.N.S. degree in Physics where his research focused on non-mathematical representations of sophisticated ideas in physics. He presented some early thoughts about his ideas at the American Association of Physics Teachers Winter conference in 2008. His professional memberships include Physics Northwest, The Illinois State Physics Project, QuarkNet, and The American Association of Physics Teachers. With Mr. Sears, our students have studied robotics through the standards-based Botball robotics competition, cosmic rays through a program with FermiLab and attended workshops in high-energy physics at Argonne Nation Lab. A number of students have gone on to study physics at the university level. It is the goal of our physics program to develop advanced skills in scientific thinking by emphasizing the modeling process throughout the curriculum. Data taking, Socratic questioning and peer review are all parts of the process that make our students college-ready by the end of their Academy experience.