BOISE — Jerod Morehouse teaches statistics at Timberline High School. His style of instruction is a bit different, which helped earned him a nomination the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching.
“I often do a flipped lesson, where the students watch a video the night before, that's kind of the lecture component, gives them all the information, and then they come to class they do group activities," said Morehouse.
Morehouse says this collaboration between students helps create a strong foundation for harder subjects. Without understanding the basics, Morehouse says students can get discouraged from pursuing a math or STEM-related field.
"It’s also an obstacle for a lot of students when they try to go to college, try to move on, a lot of times the math classes are what kind of deter them for pursuing different majors," said Morehouse, "if I can prepare them well for that, so they can actually pursue their dreams, then that makes a big difference for me."
With nearly 8,000 open stem jobs in Idaho, Morehouse’s class can help students decide if it’s something they are interested in at an earlier age.
“I get a lot of questions like hey I kinda like stats, what kind of career can I have in this, cause its kind of something we don’t talk about a lot, so I try to talk to them a lot about STEM possibilities and using stats along with computer science to do data-based sciences and those kinds of things," said Morehouse.
He's Idaho's finalist for the award, but time will tell if he earns the national one. In the meantime, he's making sure his students stay focused.
