McDowell Teacher honored as finalist for PA Teacher of the Year

Mr. Hodgson smiles proudly as he holds his certificate for being a PA Teacher of the Year finalist.

McDowell High School Teacher Rob Hodgson was honored as one of 12 finalists for Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year. The finalists were chosen out of 600 nominees over the past year and invited to a multi-day event in Hershey where the Teacher of the Year was announced.

Mr. Hodgson teaches chemistry and AP Research. In his AP Research course, he has had two students in the past few years receive perfect scores on the AP Research Exam, making each of them one of just a few hundred students worldwide to achieve such a score. Students in Mr. Hodgson’s class appreciate his enthusiasm and how he makes his classroom a place where they feel supported to try new ideas. Mr. Hodgson believes that building a culture where it’s okay to make mistakes to learn and grow is what’s important to his teaching method.

That culture has become critical to the success of his AP Research students, who must develop their own research topic and give a dissertation-style presentation as their exam. His students also take time to mentor the AP Seminar students, which is the prerequisite course for AP Research. They meet near the end of the school year to answer questions about the course, provide advice on how to choose a topic they’ll enjoy and ultimately succeed with, and guide them on Mr. Hodgson’s expectations in the research course.