Beff Mancini

What is your institution? Retired from Cherry Hill High School East, cherry Hill Nj

What do you teach? Biology and Environmental Studies

How long have you used POGIL? 19 yrs

What was your "AHA" POGIL moment? My AHA moment came in the summer of 2003, after attending a 5-day workshop with the new facilitator in town-Laura Trout. I realized that POGIL could be used for not only chemistry but biology too. My writing partner (remember Joanne Long) and I were granted one of the first SPUR grants and we wrote 26 biology activities that we began using that September. I knew that was going to be the beginning of something good.

What do you wish you had known when you first started using POGIL? Not having experience in effective facilitation to promote the process skills and also using the roles successfully were two things that I had to work hard at before I felt comfortable. It’s always a work in progress. I learn new and different things every time I do a workshop.

What would you like to see The POGIL Project accomplish in the next 20 years? Over the first 20 yrs it has been amazing to watch the Project move from chemistry on the university level, to chemistry and biology on the high school level, to all stem courses on both levels, to many curricular areas on many levels. I hope to see in the next 20 yrs a movement toward using POGIL in new and different areas such as medical schools, in business models and down to the elementary level-all areas where not only content skills but life/process skills are taught to help develop better problem solving and team work skills.

What does the POGIL community mean to you? Being part of the POGIL community has been very important to me. I have learned more and experienced more educationally in the last 19 yrs than I did in the entire 30 yrs I taught high school. The hundreds of people I have met are smart, kind and so much fun to be around. I have some great and wonderful POGIL friends.