Joe Cossette, Teacher Feature

Joe Cossette is our feature teacher for this issue of the MnSTA newsletter. Joe is in his 5th year as a teacher, teaching IB Physics and Honors Physical Science at Minnetonka High School. Before his teaching career, Joe worked as a Mechanical Development Engineer at Seagate Technology in Shakopee.

Joe’s favorite lessons involve challenging, groupworthy tasks. Lately he has really gotten into designing escape room and murder mystery style lessons to help his students practice in engaging ways. One lesson in particular that he feels embodies this spirit is his Kinematics Crime Scene. Students complete this task once they have had the opportunity to practice using the kinematic equations to describe the motion of a uniformly accelerating object. In this task, they are challenged to figure out who is responsible for breaking Wilma Wilshire’s priceless antique vase. Instead of providing all of the information describing the scenario like a word problem, groups split up and each member becomes an expert on one piece of the mystery. After some consultation with others stationed at the same clue, the students return to their original groups where they are responsible for assembling their clues to identify the culprit. The way that the clues are written, each student must use their physics content to locate the important information and each clue is required to solve the mystery so the group benefits from hearing the voice of each member.

He spends a lot of time preparing and organizing his teaching materials so that during class he can spend more time interacting with students and being flexible with his plans. Humor plays a really important role in his interactions with students and he has no problem making a fool out of himself by parodying popular music with science lyrics in front of the class. He loves puzzles and really enjoys challenging his students with tasks that push their critical thinking skills. Technology is a key part of his curriculum and he is constantly looking for new ideas to try out.

Joe loves learning and getting excited about interesting things and teaching provides the perfect outlet for this. He always considered becoming a teacher even when he was getting his engineering degree but he wanted to finish what he had started and give that career path a shot for a little bit. At Seagate, one of the opportunities that he had was to volunteer as a judge for the state science fair. He absolutely loved his time talking with and mentoring students. Eventually he realized that he could do that every single day so he made the decision to quit his job to go back to school to get his teaching license.

Joe loves sharing his practice with other science teachers and in the past couple of years, he has been very active in online communities through his twitter account (@cossettej) and website/blog (passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com). Joe is also in his 5th year as a Knowles Teacher Initiative Fellow. As part of this program, he has the opportunity to talk and share ideas with math and science teachers (other Knowles Fellows) from across the country a few times each year. He is the advisor for Science Olympiad, GSA (Gender Sexuality Alliance), Academic Anchors (Peer Tutoring), and KPop Club

Joe is the proud father to a 10 month old that has made life amazing, crazy, rewarding, and challenging. He enjoys playing guitar and singing and he has been involved in a music group at his church as well as a competitive barbershop chorus. He and his wife love musical theater and they have become masters at the educator rush so they can go to as many broadway shows as possible.

Principal Jeff Erickson had this to say about Joe, “Joe is by far one of the most innovative teachers with whom I’ve worked. He is constantly asking how he can make the content applicable to students, how can he engage them with materials, and how can I increase their curiosity in Science. He is positive, caring, focused on relationships, and full of humor. He writes song about the topics and performs them with his guitar. He is a deep thinker committed not only to his subject matter but has an unwavering commitment to each student’s success. He has the deep respect of his students, colleagues, and family. I’m fortunate to have him at MHS. I am terribly proud to have him part of my staff.”

Joe Cossette in his lab performing a demonstration for his physics students