SMS Teacher Gabriel Caudill receives Innovative Educator Award

Gabriel Caudill, 7th grade teacher at Sailorway Middle School, was recently selected to receive the Innovative Educator Award from WVIZ/PBS Ideastream.  The award is given annually to three educators from northeastern Ohio and recognizes innovative integration and use of technology in classrooms.

Mr. Caudill is a second-year science teacher who deftly interweaves technology into all of his students' hands-on projects, providing them with learning experiences that are both real and relevant. Last school year Mr. Caudill worked with his students to create Minecraft power plants as they learned about energy transformations, and challenged them to make their own headphones to fully comprehend the mechanics of sound.

This year Mr. Caudill invested an enormous amount of time and some of his own money to create a green screen recording room accessible to students at our middle school.  The broadcast room is complete with camera, microphone, and lighting.   Students have used the area to emulate television meteorologists by producing their own weather forecasts.  This lesson generated additional conversation and learning for the class when our student from Spain was able to share first-hand experiences with warmer weather as a result of the Gulf Stream during her forecast. 

Mr. Caudill's commitment to his science students, coupled with his continued endeavor to invent projects that are applicable to their lives, is the reason he was selected for this prestigious award.

The award will be presented at the WVIZ/PBS Education Advisory Council Meeting on April 19, 2016 at Ideastream in Cleveland.