Science classrooms have the opportunity to create spaces and places where students can grapple with real world issues and consider potential solutions to problems we face today and in our future. Knowles provides teachers the spaces to learn from each other and consider new ways to provide such opportunities for students.”

Kathleen’s Story

Kathleen Tysiak is a Chicago Public Schools teacher who currently teaches AP Biology and Anatomy and Physiology. She enjoys sharing her passion for the sciences and cultivating curious, inquisitive, and active learners. Kathleen hopes to help her students master scientific practices while also investigating their role in reinforcing or interrupting inequitable structures. She aims to help students gain skills that will be applicable to various facets of their lives and can be used to help them act as transformative agents in society. Throughout her career, Kathleen has pioneered an AP Biology program; restructured an Anatomy and Physiology course to engage critical pedagogies; and facilitated department-wide and school-wide work on science skill development and equity through multiple leadership roles, including department chairperson and instructional leadership team member. She has also provided professional support to teachers as a Master Teaching Fellow in Project SEEEC and as a Yale National Fellow. Kathleen’s research interests include how critical pedagogies in science can create spaces and places to engage students in reimagining more equitable societies. She has presented her research at the 2018 Noyce Summit and 2020 NARST Annual International Conference. Kathleen holds a Bachelor of Science in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana and a Master of Arts in Teaching in secondary education from National Louis University. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time outdoors, traveling, and hiking.