Patrick Coleman’s “learning studio” concept earned top honors in a statewide competition of science teachers and now he has a $7500 grant in make it happen.
Coleman, a 2009 EdTech graduate, was nominated by Euclid, Ohio, schools chief Joffery Jones as a reward for using his EdTech skills in teaching colleagues how to teach in a Moodle-based hybrid environment. Only later did Coleman realize the nomination honor came with a 14-page application that he had to fill out.
When he won the lauded Arthur Holden Jennings Excellence in Science Teaching Award—the first time ever for a Euclid teacher—school board member Kent Smith called him in a blog “the best science teacher in the state.”
Wow, that’s enough energy to make any chemistry teacher’s test tubes boil.
The vision that turned the heads of judges in the Arthur Holden Jennings grant awards included student-created pod- and vod-casts, tutorials, demonstrations, and other types of instructional videos that effectively broadcast artifacts of learning to the world.
“You can factor out chemistry and factor in any discipline,” he says. “Videos foster deep reflection on the content because it puts students into the shoes of the teacher. It’s easy to put your name on a paper seen only by the teacher, but YouTube is like the six o’clock news. If you knew your work was going to be on the six o’clock news, you’d put more into it.”
And they do, he says.
Ironically, all of this enthusiasm comes from a reluctant learner. The transformation started almost imperceptibly in the Fall of 2008 when a skeptical Patrick Coleman took Chareen Snelson’s YouTube for Educators class.
He was not convinced at first—for one thing, he was nervous about unblocking YouTube in the school district—but he said she never pushed her opinions on him; she just let him learn. A year or so later, after he’d completed the master’s program, he was reflecting on what he’d learned and—what do you know?—ideas began to congeal in his head, and so he started teaching those principles to his high school chemistry students, slowly at first and optionally, in case he encountered some skepticism.
Boy-oh-boy, did he!
Up to a third of his chemistry students wanted no part of it. They wanted to write lab reports the traditional way, the way their older siblings had, and perhaps their parents had, so he let them. But then something interesting happened. That number dwindled to perhaps 10 percent because many of the hold-outs liked the work their early-adapter classmates were doing and wanted to publish video lab reports on YouTube, as well. So, heave-ho to the old days of traditional lab reports.
Converting students and colleagues—and himself, as it turns out—to 21st century learning processes is something like “luring a scared rabbit out of a bush. You don’t want to make any sudden movements.”
“I am thrilled with the education I got at Boise State because it positioned me so well to what I’m doing now,” he said. “Dr. Snelson and Dr. Rice really had a major impact on me and on my teaching and tech integration practices.” And, he added, he would never have been considered for an honor like the Arthur Holden Jennings Award were it not for the Boise State EdTech program.
“I proudly preach the Boise State gospel way out here in northeast Ohio.”
Amen, brother.
NOTE: Some of Patrick’s students’ projects are posted at www.youtube.com/colemanchemistry and more will become available as he gets waivers from parents.
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