IN CHRIS BARTLO’S classroom at Portland’s Wilson High School, students learn by doing. He gives them the freedom to take on projects of their choosing and progress at their own pace.
Bartlo said they not only learn how to write code for their websites, games and apps, but they also develop important skills—like logic, problem solving, creativity, collaboration and project management—that will help them succeed no matter what career they choose. Among the projects that have emerged from his classes are an app that detects melanoma and another that connects restaurants with leftover food to soup kitchens and food banks.
Bartlo (MS ’07, MEd ’08, MS ’14) is a proponent of project-based learning. It’s that approach to teaching that earned him a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching in October.
“Receiving the Presidential Award is the highest honor for a teacher and I’m so excited that one of PSU’s alums was a recent recipient,” said Karen Marrongelle, former College of Liberal Arts and Sciences dean for PSU and current assistant director of the National Science Foundation for Education and Human Resources. The NSF administers the award for K-12 math and science teachers. “Chris is amazing and incredibly dedicated, so this honor could not have been bestowed on a more deserving teacher.”
Bartlo said he shares the award with his students. “It’s just as much their win,” he said. “If they didn’t bring their energy and interest and creativity, I wouldn’t have cool projects to talk about.”
Since he arrived at Wilson in 2009, Bartlo has helped build computer science into a comprehensive, four-year program that is open to everyone, not just those in advanced math classes. He wants his students to become creators rather than simply consumers of technology. It’s no surprise that the number of students in the program has grown from about 30 to more than 270.
With so little research about best practices in teaching computer science, Bartlo said his collection of degrees from Portland State have come in handy when experimenting with what works best in the classroom.
“I’m programmed to collect data and study it, so my research background ends up being really helpful when I try stuff out and document it,” he said.
After graduating from Pomona College with a double major in mathematics and science as well as technology and society, Bartlo and his wife, Joanna, lived in Italy for a while. When they returned to the states for graduate school, they decided on Portland and were drawn to PSU’s programs—he for the systems science program and she for the highly regarded mathematics education Ph.D. program. It was also during this time that Bartlo discovered his passion for teaching high schoolers while volunteering at OMSI.
He completed his master’s in systems science and earned graduate certificates in simulation and artificial intelligence. He then started the graduate teaching program with an emphasis on mathematics. Once he began teaching, he continued taking classes and eventually earned a master’s in mathematics for teachers, too.
Bartlo said he found community at PSU —from the close-knit family in systems science to his cohort of fellow math teachers —and still keeps in touch with classmates.
“When you pick a program, hopefully there’s great professors and things like that, but really, you’re getting a community of people who want to learn the same stuff you do,” he said. “PSU is such an interesting mix of people. They’re coming for all different reasons and that’s very stimulating on its own.”
CRISTINA ROJAS is the communications manager for PSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.