Susan Richardson

What is your institution? The POGIL Project

What do you teach? I taught high school biology for 27 years

How long have you used POGIL? Since 2007, so 16 years.

What was your "AHA" POGIL moment? At the very first workshop I attended, we did a form of the drawing activity (parallelogram, Venn diagram, peace sign, etc.) and my mind was simultaneously exploding and joyful. I'm hooked on that feeling!

What do you wish you had known when you first started using POGIL? That persevering with process skills, as challenging and tiring as that can be, is the very best way to help students learn and grow (and learn and grow myself).

What would you like to see The POGIL Project accomplish in the next 20 years? Adding disciplines beyond STEM that reach down to intermediate grades and up to advanced post-secondary courses, becoming endowed financially, excelling in growing the whole student academically and socially/emotionally, and being broadly recognized as a best-practice pedagogical tool.

What does the POGIL community mean to you? The POGIL community is a source of energy and encouragement, providing me with an unmatched opportunity to learn and participate in respectful, interdependent, caring relationships around my chosen career. As a teacher, POGIL meetings from PNM to facilitating workshops to the AP Bio activity revision group have been a place to re-energize and find professional and emotional support to continue the demanding work of helping students learn and grow while learning and growing myself.