Mendham Science Teacher Discusses Evolved Teaching Methods At Philly Conference

MENDHAM, NJ — A local science teacher was recently given the opportunity to speak at a prestigious teaching conference in Philadelphia, presenting how fresh implementations to her curriculum have shown student growth.

Denise Magrini, Mountain View Middle School’s 8th-grade science teacher, presented at the 2025 National Science Teaching Association National Conference alongside Wil van der Veen, Director of the Science Education Institute. Their presentation focused on “How Several Impactful Instructional Changes Led To Enhanced Student Learning.”

Ms. Magrini exhibited models and other examples completed by her 8th-grade students, showing educators from all over the U.S. examples of what “reflective climate change instruction” looks like in an 8th-grade science classroom.

“I want to give students the opportunity to engage their prior understandings about a phenomenon AND give them meaningful, well-designed performance tasks that allow them to understand how new factual knowledge and ideas fit (or does not fit) into their conceptual framework,” she said in a statement. “That is why I developed a rubric specifically designed to include student reflection as well as evaluation.”

Ms. Magrini, who has been teaching in Mendham for 17 years, focused on the importance of acknowledging the way science teaching has changed over the years, specifically on Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). She also focuses on how keeping students’ parents in the loop is key.

“Science is being taught very differently than when many adults went to school. Therefore, it is important to address these differences with parents and explain how the 3 dimensions of the NGSS are designed to engage students more fully in investigating causes for observable phenomena,” Ms. Magrini said. “This type of learning takes time, especially if we want students to develop their own conceptual framework around science phenomenon, fit new learning into their own conceptual framework, or recognize that prior ideas they have do not fit anymore and need to be replaced with new learnings.”

To view some highlights from Philadelphia's 2025 National Science Teaching Association National Conference, click here.