Sideri Shoots Her Shot To Fill Teaching Spot
New Geometrey and Algebra II teacher continues teaching into the 2021-22 school year.
By Jocelyn Cosgrove
New Geometrey and Algebra II teacher continues teaching into the 2021-22 school year.
By Jocelyn Cosgrove
With a new school year comes new teachers, including Stefania Sideri, one of the new Accelerated Algebra 2 and Geometry teachers, coming to campus with experience from last semester's online year.
Born and raised in Athens, Greece, Sideri graduated high school before getting a scholarship to the University of Portland, where she played basketball, before moving to attend the University of New Mexico. She got her bachelor's degree in science and mathematics and her master’s degree in fine arts.
While in college, Sideri started tutoring as a freshman, and later taught high school in New Mexico. Sideri began teaching at Pioneer online a few months before the end of the 2021 school year, and is now teaching in person on campus.
“Even with Webex, everyone was so nice, everyone was participating and I felt like I knew my students for so long. It didn’t feel like it was my first year. And then I came here and it was in person this year and people came to visit me for other classes I had last year, like, ‘Oh Ms. Sideri was the only Webex class I paid attention to the whole time. That I actually learned,’” Sideri said.
When it comes to teaching her students, Sideri has been said to give hard work to students at first, but when help is needed, Sideri understands and helps her students.
“I like how she’s super understanding and tries to make sure you get what she’s teaching. Like she tries to make sure the whole class knows what’s going on,” said Mahalie Barlow, 10.
While elementary and middle school focuses more on the basics of math and science, Sideri said teaching high school students allows her to go more in depth into geometry and algebra.
“It’s also because it’s challenging cause I see high school as an important step. You either go to college, you either go to work, either become a good person, or struggle a little, but you find yourself. So it’s that point in life that I think in high school that we all actually find ourselves and that's what I like,” said Sideri.
A classroom’s environment is both based on the students and the teacher, and for Sideri’s class, having a bad classroom environment is unheard of amongst some of Sideri’s students.
“The classroom environment is great, it's very social. We have tablemates and we’ve talked to them a lot and that's most of the class,” said Cael Crogan, 10.
While some teachers prefer to use whiteboards as the place for notes, as an alternative for Sideri, she uses Google Docs and a tablet for her notes.
“I write on them, every problem step by step and then I save that and put it on Canvas so even if you miss class or you didn't understand everything or you didn’t take good notes, my notes will be there step by step and the examples of how we did it in class,” said Sideri.
Even though being back in person has been hard, Sideri hopes to help her students as much as she can, and to also bring a love for math amongst her students by the end of the year.
“I'm here to recover, even students that miss two years, they were not good at something, when they come to class they can bring those back. They can start liking math cause I see the first day they say ‘I hate math.’ By the end of the class they say ‘I love math now.’ Because it's a game, it's better than reading forever and ever finding a solution,” Sideri said.
Born and raised in Athens, Greece, Sideri graduated high school before getting a scholarship to the University of Portland, where she played basketball, before moving to attend the University of New Mexico. She got her bachelor's degree in science and mathematics and her master’s degree in fine arts.
While in college, Sideri started tutoring as a freshman, and later taught high school in New Mexico. Sideri began teaching at Pioneer online a few months before the end of the 2021 school year, and is now teaching in person on campus.
“Even with Webex, everyone was so nice, everyone was participating and I felt like I knew my students for so long. It didn’t feel like it was my first year. And then I came here and it was in person this year and people came to visit me for other classes I had last year, like, ‘Oh Ms. Sideri was the only Webex class I paid attention to the whole time. That I actually learned,’” Sideri said.
When it comes to teaching her students, Sideri has been said to give hard work to students at first, but when help is needed, Sideri understands and helps her students.
“I like how she’s super understanding and tries to make sure you get what she’s teaching. Like she tries to make sure the whole class knows what’s going on,” said Mahalie Barlow, 10.
While elementary and middle school focuses more on the basics of math and science, Sideri said teaching high school students allows her to go more in depth into geometry and algebra.
“It’s also because it’s challenging cause I see high school as an important step. You either go to college, you either go to work, either become a good person, or struggle a little, but you find yourself. So it’s that point in life that I think in high school that we all actually find ourselves and that's what I like,” said Sideri.
A classroom’s environment is both based on the students and the teacher, and for Sideri’s class, having a bad classroom environment is unheard of amongst some of Sideri’s students.
“The classroom environment is great, it's very social. We have tablemates and we’ve talked to them a lot and that's most of the class,” said Cael Crogan, 10.
While some teachers prefer to use whiteboards as the place for notes, as an alternative for Sideri, she uses Google Docs and a tablet for her notes.
“I write on them, every problem step by step and then I save that and put it on Canvas so even if you miss class or you didn't understand everything or you didn’t take good notes, my notes will be there step by step and the examples of how we did it in class,” said Sideri.
Even though being back in person has been hard, Sideri hopes to help her students as much as she can, and to also bring a love for math amongst her students by the end of the year.
“I'm here to recover, even students that miss two years, they were not good at something, when they come to class they can bring those back. They can start liking math cause I see the first day they say ‘I hate math.’ By the end of the class they say ‘I love math now.’ Because it's a game, it's better than reading forever and ever finding a solution,” Sideri said.