“I try to give my students real-life situations where they have to do some kind of experiment or analysis, where there may not be a right or wrong answer but where they have to work out what they think,” said Corley, who is both chemistry teacher and head of the science department at Mountain Brook High School.
To that end, Corley gathers the range of perspectives: from history to current events and from biographies of famous figures to guest presentations by friends. For example, with a unit on nuclear chemistry comes a discussion about energy options, a history of the atomic bomb, and a guest speaker from the U.S. Navy to talk about nuclear submarines and weapons, she said.
“Chemistry really does relate to real life. It’s not just a textbook,” said Corley.
What she hopes her students leave her classroom with is “a sense of inquiry — asking questions, not just taking things at face value,” she said. “So even if you don’t go into a science field, you can look at something on the news and say, “let’s analyze this for ourselves, let’s see where this came from’.”
Teaching chemistry was a profession that Corley found rather than planned her way into, she said. “I didn’t have the foggiest what to do” after graduating from college, she said, and decided to give teaching a try: “I took some educational courses, taught for a year, and was more or less hooked. It’s never the same from day to day.”
“In my 37 years of teaching experience Theresa is one of the most outstanding educators I have encountered,” wrote a colleague to nominate her for the award.
Corley received her undergraduate degree from Birmingham-Southern College in 1983 and her Ph.D. in educational leadership and chemical education from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2000. She is a member of the ACS division of chemical education.
The ACS James Bryant Conant Award in High School Chemistry Teaching is sponsored by Albermarle Corp.