It is a great honor to be considered for the Presidential Award. I am grateful that my style of teaching and method of relating chemistry concepts to students is worthy of such consideration. I have had some amazing mentors and been allowed much latitude in trying new things to make connections for my students. With this recognition, I hope to continue to improve my own methods of teaching and have a greater impact on those with whom I teach. 

Dennis Burkett, Jr. Olathe, KS | 7-12, Science, 2011

The official biography below was current at the time of the award.

Dennis Burkett has taught at Olathe South High School for the past 7 years. He teaches General Chemistry and Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry, and he enjoys incorporating technology into both of the courses he teaches. For example, podcasting his lessons for AP Chemistry and using Google Docs enables his students to collaboratively design and carry out labs. Dennis has adopted a thematic approach to teaching the district curriculum. With this method, students learn about gases as a way to talk about rockets, acid/base chemistry and solubility as a way to understand sports drinks, and calorimetry and heat transfer as a way to understand what "counting calories" really means. Dennis has served on the Olathe South Technology Committee and has been the mentor teacher for the last three chemistry teachers hired by Olathe South High School. In 2007, Dennis was a Kansas Horizon Award recipient, which recognizes exemplary first-year teachers. Dennis has a B.A. in chemistry from Point Loma Nazarene University; a B.A. in secondary education from the University of Missouri, Kansas City; an M.A. in theological studies from Nazarene Theological Seminary; and an M.A. in instructional technology from Mid-America Nazarene University. He is a certified secondary-level teacher in chemistry.

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