Campbell Enjoys First Year in Digital Electronics

Chaz Vaughn, a very well-known teacher and announcer for the Dimond sports, retired after 8 years of teaching Digital Electronics.

After Vaughn chose to retire, Dimond Science teacher Scott Campbell stepped up to the plate and took over his class.

Campbell originally taught Astronomy, IS-9 and Chemistry, which many students have taken.

“He has a very unique and interesting approach to teaching,” says Ozair El-Omari, a senior at Dimond, who is in Campbell’s class now. “He’s doing a fine job. We are learning at a very considerable pace, and his teaching method makes the material easy to comprehend.”

Dimond Senior Jarod O’ Brien had both Vaughn and Campbell as teachers.

“They have the same way of teaching. They demonstrate what needs to be done and have a way of protruding what they have to say physically.”

O’Brien had Vaughn during Vaughn’s last year at Dimond. He said Campbell would come in every day and work hands-on with the students and do the assignments with them in order to learn about the class.

Campbell was approached about teaching Vaughn’s class at the end of the school year two years ago. Campbell had no prior knowledge about Digital Electronics.

Campbell learned last year that he would officially be taking over Digital Electronics. He was pretty comfortable with just teaching his classes, but decided to accept his new role.

“Ultimately, though, I saw it as a challenge, I saw it as an opportunity for growth, and I saw it as a chance to learn and build a new skill set. It was all the things I preach to my students on a day-to-day basis,” Campbell said.

In order to fulfill this duty, Campbell forfeited his planning period last year to sit in and observe Vaughn’s class to get the feel of the pacing and rigor of the course. He had very little concept of this course, only some on an atomic level from his chemistry background like electrons. The complex concepts, like the movements of said electrons or “electricity” was not a specialty of his.

During the past summer he attended a “brutally intensive training” to get certified for the course.

“It was referred to as ‘Boot Camp’ for a reason,” says Campbell. “I spent literally 14 hours per day for 10 days learning the entire DE course content.”

All in all, he said learned in a single day what he expects his students to learn in an entire month of class.

Campbell spends a total of about 60-80 hours a week working in order to set everything together.

“I don’t really like to admit that I ever get stressed about anything, but I won’t deny the fact that I’ve experienced equal parts of apprehension and anxiety over teaching DE.”

Although Campbell now has twice the amount to do, while learning himself the new course for DE, he enjoys having two classes. It brings diversity to his day, instead of teaching the same class for five periods.