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Chad Thelen » Mr. Thelen

Mr. Thelen

Personal
Personal Interests
Most of my hobbies involve me being outdoors.  I enjoy hunting and fishing.  I like to kayak, play disc golf and traditional golf, and am on a 4 on 4 sand volleyball team this summer.  When I have the chance, I enjoy camping,  jogging, biking, and playing pickleball.  If I'm watching something, it's likely to be an NFL game, a Dude Perfect video on YouTube, or one of the MCU movies.  I also like listening to the Tigers on the radio.  Oh, and I'm my Fantasy Football League's first three time champion :)
 
Family
I've been happily married for 20 years (in August) and have two incredible daughters.  We are definitely a Constantine family as both my daughters attend CPS and my wife now teaches in the district with me.  
 
Education
After graduating from Fowler High School, I attended Grand Valley State University where I majored in Computer Science and minored in English, both with an emphasis in secondary Education.
Since then, I have taken many classes through Marygrove College and Andrews University and attended quite a few training seminar and conference, including CSTA, MACUL, TRIG, and Code.org.
I began working for Constantine in the 2002/2003 school year and have had a lot great experiences in the past 19 years.  
 
Teaching
Most of my time has been spent in the high school where I started teaching Computer Science (programming, web design, and computer application classes) and General Business.  Later on I was moved to the English department (teaching 9th, 10th, and 12th grade).  After I taught Computers and before I taught English in the high school, I spent one year teaching 6th and 7th grade ELA in the middle school.  For the past three years I have been teaching computers and robotics in the middle school.
 
Coaching
I have coached two or three sports every year I have been at Constantine.  In the fall, I have been either the Freshman or Middle School Football Coach up until this year.  Starting in 2021, I will be the Varsity Men's Cross Country coach.  I have also been the Varsity Women's Track and Field coach since I hired in.  I am also on my third stint coaching Middle School Boy's Basketball.  
 
Union
I have held a number positions within our collective bargaining unit.  I was the union president for two years, grievance chair for a number of years after that, the treasurer for two years, and I am now going to be our Assembly Rep for the 2021/2022 school year.
Courses Taught
First Semester
 
  • Unit 1, Problem Solving and Computing, is a highly interactive and collaborative introduction to the field of computer science, as framed within the broader pursuit of solving problems. Students practice using a problem solving process to address a series of puzzles, challenges, and real world scenarios. Next, students will learn how computers input, output, store, and process information to help humans solve problems. The unit concludes with a project in which students will design an application that helps solve a problem of their choosing.
  • In Unit 2, students will learn how to create and share the content on their own web pages.  After deciding what content you want to share with the world, students will learn how to structure and style their pages using HTML and CSS.  Students will also practice valuable programming skills such as debugging and commenting.  By the end of the unit, students will have a personal website that they can publish to the internet.
  • In Unit 3, students build on their coding experience as they program animations, interactive art, and games in Game Lab. The unit starts off with simple shapes and builds up to more sophisticated sprite-based games, using the same programming concepts and the design process computer scientists use daily. In the final project, students develop a personalized, interactive program.
 
Second Semester:
 
  • In the first unit, The Design Process, students move from thinking about computer science as a tool to solve their own problems towards considering the broader social impacts of computing. 
  • The second unit, Data and Society, is about the importance of data in solving problems and highlights how computers can help in this process. 
  • The final unit, Physical Computing, will have students improve their programming skills while exploring more deeply the role of hardware platforms in computing.

Digital Citizenship is a course designed to help students learn how live a healthy digital life.  In the class, we will learn about media balance & well-being, privacy & security, digital footprints & online identity, relationships & communication, cyberbullying; digital drama; & hate speech, and news & media literacy.  

  • In the media balance & well-being unit, students will go beyond screen time to explore the impact their digital lives can have on their well-being and relationships while learning to balance media in their everyday lives. 
  • In the privacy & security unit, students learn how to protect personal information and gain a deeper understanding of their data privacy rights so they can advocate for themselves and others. 
  • Students consider the benefits and risks of online sharing and explore how a digital persona can affect one's sense of self, reputation, and relationships in the digital footprints & identity unit. 
  • Relationships & communication will have students reflect on how to build positive relationships, avoid risky online talk, and understand why some topics and conversations can best lend themselves to certain mediums. 
  • When  we reach the cyberbullying, digital drama & hate speech portion of the class, students take on these tough topics and play the active role of upstanders to build positive, supportive online communities and combat online cruelty. 
  • Finally, students will identify credible and trustworthy information sources and reflect on their responsibilities as thoughtful media creators and consumers in the news & media literacy unit.
Course Description:
Course Description:
In Web Design and Development, students are introduced to the design, creation, and maintenance of web pages and websites.  Students will learn how to critically evaluate website quality, learn how to create and maintain quality web pages, learn about web design standards and why they're important, and learn to create and manipulate images.
 
  • In the first unit, Designing and Planning Web Pages, students will learn about design principles that apply to web design and development to help them in evaluating the quality of websites.  Here they will also be introduced to color theory and web design standards.  They will be introduced to site planning and storyboard creation.
  • In the second unit, Creating Pages with HTML, students learn the basics of coding in HTML.  Students learn about the essential tags for creating an HTML document as well as how to create different types of content within a page, such as headings and paragraphs, tables, links, and images.
  • In Formatting Web Pages with Style Sheets, the third unit, students learn how to present the content they created in an effective and attractive manner.  CSS is the primary focus as fonts, colors, and spacing is learned.
  • The fourth unit, Graphics, teaches the learners how to create and modify graphics as well as how to properly incorporate them in their web page.
  • Unit five introduces students to writing Javascript and using alerts and buttons within their pages.  Students learn about some default functions that exist and learn how to create their own.
  • Unit six deals with Quality Control where students will test the quality of the websites they have created. Students will test their website using both an automated tool that validate websites and check them for errors and well as manually test their pages by observing other users interacting with their site.
 
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Name
Chad Thelen
Position
Teacher
Email
Send email
Phone
269.435.8940 ext. 62119
Address
260 W. Sixth Street
Constantine, MI 49042
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