About Me

My name is Jim Nordman. I am a student at Grand Valley where I study math, physics, and education. I plan on teaching secondary math and science. Up until this last winter, I would have said that I wanted to teach high school instead of middle school. But after teacher assisting in a middle school math class I think I might favor middle school. I think I'll know more after student teaching. I get to student teach in two classes I have always wanted to teach: Calculus and Physics.

Myself and My 2 Brothers at Snoqualmie Falls near Seattle, WA

I have had a rather unorthodox path into education. I graduated from Lowell High School and went to the University of Michigan to study engineering. I knew I liked math and physics, and everyone told me I should be an engineer, so that's what I did. I spent 5 semesters at UofM, changing my major each time (nuclear, chemical, electrical, computer, and mechanical engineering). I eventually realized that I liked teaching and I haven't looked back since. I took 2.5 years off to save some money by working as a lab technician at Amway (where I was, literally, a professional taste-tester). I transferred to GVSU for the Fall of 2014 and have loved every minute of it.

I like to use technology in the classroom. I think the best example I have was my Triangle Guess Who game. The students were learning about classifying triangles (acute/right/obtuse and scalene/isosceles/equilateral). This game is similar to Guess Who, but we used triangles. The game paired the students up and gave each pair a set of 16 triangles. One would pick a triangle, and the other would ask yes/no questions to figure out which triangle was picked. The game saved the questions that were asked and who asked the questions. This helped me tremendously. I was able to see how the students were using this new vocabulary and whether or not they were using the vocabulary correctly. This game was fun for the students, it tricked them into mastering how to classify triangles, and it gave me feedback on which types of triangles they were struggling with.

Two things I love are college football and cooking. These things come together in the following video (the recipe is listed below)

Stuffed Peppers

• 6 Jalapeños
• 4oz Cream Cheese
• One Half Package Sausage
• One Half Cup Cheddar Cheese
• 6 Slices of Bacon (cut in half)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic (optional)
• 12 Toothpicks (soak them in a cup of water)

1. Slice the jalapeños in half vertically and scoop out the insides (the seeds make the peppers spicy, so remove seeds depending on how spicy you want them) 
2. Mix the cream cheese, cooked sausage, cheddar cheese, and Salt&Pepper (and possibly garlic) in a bowl. I recommend microwaving the cream cheese so it's easy to mix.
3. Take (roughly) a spoonful of cheese and sausage mixture and stuff the peppers.
4. Wrap each stuffed pepper in a half slice of bacon and pin it together with the water soaked toothpicks.
5. Grill the stuffed peppers over low heat until the bacon is cooked.
6. Optional - Bake the peppers on a baking rack (with foil lining underneath) at 400F until the bacon is cooked (about 15-20 min)