My name is Michael Mettenburg and I'm a high school Social Studies teacher. I first taught in Chicago Public Schools from 2014-2021. My family and I then moved to Iowa in 2021 to be closer to family, which is where we currently reside and I currently teach. I started teaching AP Human Geography in 2017 and have been teaching it ever since. I earned my teaching degree from the University of Iowa in 2012 and my Masters in Teaching and Learning from the University of St. Frances Joliet in...
My name is Michael Mettenburg and I'm a high school Social Studies teacher. I first taught in Chicago Public Schools from 2014-2021. My family and I then moved to Iowa in 2021 to be closer to family, which is where we currently reside and I currently teach. I started teaching AP Human Geography in 2017 and have been teaching it ever since. I earned my teaching degree from the University of Iowa in 2012 and my Masters in Teaching and Learning from the University of St. Frances Joliet in 2020.
7+ yeas of teaching AP Human Geography has afforded me plenty of time to learn the course expectations and collect resources like textbooks, social media accounts, articles, news stories, and non-fiction books to help learn the material. I was lucky enough to be selected as a Pulitzer Center fellow to develop lesson plans utilizing under-reported journalism in 2021 which really helped me supplement and enrich lessons in my AP Human Geography course. I also participated in an AP Summer Institute at Loyola University in 2019 specifically for AP Human Geography where I sharpened my understanding of the course content by learning from professionals in geography fields and some of the actual creators of the course itself.
All of this has helped me become the AP Human Geography teacher I am today. I feel very confident in tutoring students in this course because of my professional experience and my current role as a high school teacher. The typical age of my students has been 9th and 10th graders. Most recently, I had 92% of my 108 students earn a 3 or higher on the AP Human Geography Exam in May of 2025.
I think what might set me apart from other tutors is my genuine love for AP Human Geography. It's a course that I think every student (and adult!) should take it. Because of this I tend to put time outside school into learning more about the content. I always tell my students that regardless of what they earn on the AP Exam I hope I brainwash them into seeing AP Human Geography in their every day life 😅
