Students and parents might wonder if Mr. Kaestner is qualified to teach. Here are some of my credentials:
Photo by Kenneth Ingham.
The next day, same cave, I set myself on fire. Good times.
Disenchanted Student:
College Education and Teaching Credentials:
Work, awards, and other relevant experiences:
- Montezuma Elementary School
- Jefferson Junior High
- Albuquerque High School
College Education and Teaching Credentials:
- Semester in London, UK, (through UNM)
- B.S. Biology, B.A. Economics, UNM
- M.A. Secondary Education, UNM
- Gifted Education Certification Coursework, UNM
- Holder of a Level 3-A Teaching License (grades 5-12)
Endorsements in Science, Social Studies, Business Education, and Gifted Education. - National Board Certified Teacher, 2010-2030
(I'm proud to be one of 33 New Mexicans certified in Early Adolescent Science. <http://www.nbpts.org/>)
Work, awards, and other relevant experiences:
- A couple years of shoe sales (I learned I might want to take school more seriously.)
- Construction laborer (including building portable toilets, and hauling tar paper to the roof, in July.)
- Owner and sole employee of a janitorial service (for over a decade - yes, I'm an introvert.)
- Program Coordinator for HealthNet NM (health promotion agency)
- MBA dropout
- Teacher at JMS since 1992
- Excellence in Science Teaching Award (Sandia National Labs, 2006)
- Official APS Mentor Teacher
- Candidate Support Provider for Teachers seeking National Board Certification
- Outstanding Science Teacher Award (UNM Chapter of Sigma Xi - The Scientific Research Society, 2014)
- Winner for JMS of APS Foundation's Horizon Grant "Low Tech Electric" (hands-on electricity/magnetism/electronics), 2019
- Winner of Society for Science and the Public Stem Research Grant (Lots of Micro:bits!), 2020
- Curriculum reviewer for Cyber.org, Science+ curriculum, July 2020
- JMS Teacher Leader Facilitator, 2022-2023
- Husband to wonderful wife Kathy and father of two fine Homo sapiens
- Multiple week long Materials Science workshops sponsored by ASM (where I learned to love metals and blow torches.)
- Six-week full time research experience working with UNM's Dr. Diana Northup and her team on all aspects of cave microbiology including SEM microscopy, bacterial culturing and cloning, and DNA analysis. As a bonus, I set myself on fire in Carlsbad's Spider Cave while trying to sterilize some equipment! Ouch.
- Three summers working with teachers and researchers at Sandia through the Department of Energy's Academies Creating Teacher Scientist program. My research experience focused on water purification/arsenic removal, characterization of photosynthetic bacteria, and iodine sequestration.
- Co-leader in teaching Materials Science and Nuclear Science concepts to APS teachers (Energy on the Go workshops.)
- Reviewer of Record: Science Materials - 2011 Instructional Material Summer Review Institute (NM Public Education Dept.) - why didn't APS teachers get any curriculum materials after this? I don't know!
- 120 Hours of Modeling Instruction for High School Physics Teachers, UNM Physics, Summer 2012
- UCHEMTEACH, 1-week workshop for high school chemistry teachers, Summer 2013
- Presenter: "Soar to Greater Heights" STEM Conference, Albuquerque, 2014
- Pre-AP Science week-long workshop, Summer 2015
- NES NM Middle Grades General Science Standard Setting Panel (for exam for prospective science teachers), 2016
(It was a challenge to advocate for high standards for new science teachers!) - National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Content Advisory Committee, EA Science, June, 2017
- National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Standards Setting Panel, EA Science, Chicago, August, 2017
- National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Standards Content Validation Reviewer, EA Science, February, 2018
- Project GUTS (Growing Up Thinking Scientifically) week-long computer science workshop, June, 2018
- Making Sense of Matter 1-week workshop utilizing new NGSS based NM Science Standards. June, 2018
- Project GUTS (Growing Up Thinking Scientifically) 1-week facilitator training. June 2019
- QuarkNet Data Camp. 1-week particle physics training for physics teachers at Fermilab. July 2019
- NM Computer Science Professional Development Week: Intro to Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence, June 2020
- Middle School Item Review Committee, NM Assessment of Science Readiness (NM-ASR), June 2020
- QuarkNet Virtual Data Camp. Week-long training: particle physics, large data sets, jupyter notebooks, python, oh my! July 2020
- National Evaluation Series (NES) Middle Grades General Science Content Advisory Committee, NES Test Framework Review Conference, March 2021
- Computer Science Alliance Workshop: Artificial Intelligence in Data Science, June 7-11, 2021
- Middle School Item Review Committee, NM Assessment of Science Readiness (NM-ASR), June 21-24, 2021
- NES Middle Grades Science National Benchmark Panel, November, 2022.