Marcus Tucker was nominated by Jennifer Odell at the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction.
Mr. Tucker is highly regarded within his school and district and is known for his compassion and enthusiasm. He's garnered significant professional accomplishments in a relatively short career. His volunteerism and willingness to help in any situation significantly impact his students, peers, and community. He demonstrates the traits of a lifelong leader and exhibits outstanding leadership abilities as a junior educator.
Mr. Tucker's administrators have stated that his efforts positively impact his students, both academically and personally. He seeks to help his students learn curriculum content and synthesize and apply those lessons to their lives outside the classroom. He is proactive in his approach to overcoming obstacles, including his own personal disability. He exemplifies what it means to be resilient while facing adversity, which makes him an outstanding role model for his students and peers.
Mr. Tucker's leaders provided the feedback below:
- He finds engaging, research-based methods to remedy when students need to be more engaged. For example, he creates educational games to be used regularly in the classroom to review taught content and introduce new content. He also uses "surprise boxes," where the kids use the scientific method to analyze clues to open the box.
- He always incorporates physical movement into his lessons daily, often finding opportunities to get students outside the classroom. Field trips are very common for Mr. Tucker, as he knows the value of learning in various environments.
- Mr. Tucker displays a high level of humility. He professionally does nothing to garner praise. He takes extra care not to bring the spotlight to himself as he knows that true educators selflessly sacrifice themselves for the betterment of students without the expectation of praise.
- During the COVID-19 pandemic, he ensured his students received the support they needed. He offered on-site outdoor science labs daily, so students had a place to deepen their knowledge outside of the classroom. He communicated with each of his students daily and often visited each student's house to do a weekly mental health check. When Mr. Tucker sets the standard, other teachers tend to follow his example and become better educators and leaders themselves. Likewise, his students raise their own standards they set for themselves. Many of Valley-Edinburg's graduates, especially in the last five years, have gone on to pursue rigorous scientific programs.
- Mr. Tucker has a morning zero-period weight class where he uses math formulas to see where students can max out – so they do math while they build muscle!
- Mr. Tucker started the Titan Classic, an event that the Vex Robotics teams in the state are invited to attend yearly. His STEM students build robots for the event. When Valley-Edinburg hosted the event, Mr. Tucker organized all of it. In the years when the school doesn't get the state bid, Valley-Edinburg still hosts the practice event, which he also organizes.
- Student science scores have increased since Mr. Tucker began teaching in the school.
- He is active in the district and community and pursues professional development opportunities independently. He helps negotiate wages for the teachers. He finds activities for kids to help them live a drug-free life – like curling, for example; he takes the kids curling every year. He is on the Grafton Curling Club Board and volunteers for the St. Thomas Volunteer Fire Department. He attends professional development conferences to collaborate and learn from his regional peers. He is certified to teach CTE credits – he went above and beyond to get that credential. Additionally, when the school needed a Physical Education teacher, he went to complete Praxis to fill that role. He has served as the head coach for volleyball and the girls' track team, and now, he helps coach football.
- Mr. Tucker once held an event with a theme of "attitude of gratitude." It was during an all-school assembly that he organized entirely on his own. He explained what gratitude is and had the kids write "thank you" cards. This activity explains who Mr. Tucker is: he, as a science teacher, held an event most teachers wouldn't do to reach the students and teach them something valuable. He thinks outside the box.