Andrew Samulewicz

The reason that I am submitting my teacher to this program is because they are one of the few teachers that go above and beyond and deserve to be rewarded for such efforts. I had Mr. Sam during the COVID-19 pandemic. When we first entered his class, most of his lessons were built around what to expect from the course, and rapport building with students. He is able to maintain a relationship with students that not only demands respect but also feels very friendly. Before class, he would always check in on students and ask about their interests, current events, and previous assignments. To me, this facilitates an environment of comfortability and conversation, which causes more involvement in the lesson. His lessons are professional grade compositions of videos, brief and engaging slide show lectures, and interactive platforms such as Nearpod, Gimkit, etc. The videos that he uses for his lessons, which act as a substitute for a boring lecture, work flawlessly. They allow students to note take, absorb content at their own pace, and easily be able to rewatch the content later for studying. On his website, (https://sites.google.com/view/lowermerionscience/home?authuser=0), he has complied all of his videos into a massive catalog, along with a massive custom made online textbook made inhouse by him. This textbook has infographics with assets that were made by him (mostly). During one of his classes, he stated that one of his videos that he made took over 40 hours of work, which is an insane amount of time when he could just as easily find a video online and make his students watch it. Instead of this lazy ladder approach, he decides to spend his own time making these sources for his class, which allows students to absorb and retain information much better. He is truly involved and interested in what he teaches, which can be seen from his ex-professional career in researching. He also makes sure students are not overworked and has a very laidback approach to assignments. The way he does his assignments is that anything, such as a project or a paper, that has a due date will adhere to that due date. But, anything like notes would be due on the day of the test. This makes sure that students are well educated for the test. This gives students a massive reduction in stress as they can complete the aforementioned videos on their own time if they were unfinished in class. Another thing that he does to reduce stress for students, is regular trips to the school's green house. During these trips we water plants, help maintain a worm farm, help with stabilizing the roots and stems of tomato plants, and much more. These are so relaxing and give us a break from the constant drone of screens that came with COVID. There is truly something relaxing about going from a long day of school, to having a nice break listening to the wind blow by and smelling the smell of a green house. Mr. Sam constantly is asking students how his lessons are and looks for feedback after almost every video/lecture. One of the common phrases he ask after a video is, "Quality or not-Quality?" This is not an exaggeration, but I have never once heard someone say that his videos were not quality. One thing that solidifies this opinion of him truly caring about his work is when he had come up to me when we were learning about a concept of evolution. We have had conversations prior to this about video editing and photoshopping and he knew that I took interest in those things. He had told me that there was an error in the video and asked if I had spotted it. If I had spotted it, I had replied no as I had noticed nothing wrong with it. He then went to a point in the video where he had a in-house made asset for a moth on screen and asked if I could spot the thing wrong with it. I once again said, "No." He then pointed out a one pixel wide line on the bottom of the moth that he said he left on by accident. Him taking such qualms with this one mixup that no one had noticed even further solidifies the opinion that he is a teacher who truly cares for the learning of his students instead of the scores of the SATs. Mr. Sam truly changed my thoughts on science and made me much more interested in it than I even was before. I still retain our first lessons on how each part of a cell functions. He is a shining example of how a top grade teacher should be. To let his work go unnoticed would be a massive let down to me and my peers. Nominating him is the least that I can do to thank him for his efforts that he was put into his line of work. Some examples of his videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpBiRbQEuzg https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yCLhqFA1x7qbJkv30cbwIADzBYBB4oLG/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EG79trbP5DLbfhjrnf58R0LjqQzAVgWT/view