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Three Regina teachers nationally recognized
Page: A5
Section: News
Byline: Kerry Benjoe
Regina is home to not one but three nationally award winning teachers.
Last month, Joanna Sanders Bobiash travelled to Ottawa to receive the prestigious Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence.Randy McLeod from Campbell Collegiate and Dean Vendramin from Archbishop M.C. O'Neill High School each received a Certificate of Achievement.
"It was a very exciting experience," Sanders Bobiash said. "But also very humbling at the same time because I was nominated by a number of parents, colleagues and students to receive the award."
Sanders Bobiash has been teaching at Ecole Wilfrid Walker for the past seven years, where she is a part-time teacher librarian and teaches Grade 6, 7 and 8 social studies and science. She received the Certificate of Excellence for her innovative teaching methods.
Sanders Bobiash uses the latest technology and finds ways to incorporate blogging, Skyping, webquesting and Googling into her classroom lessons.
Her interest in technology has created unique learning opportunities that benefit her students.
"I actually went to Google this summer and became a Google-certified teacher in Seattle, (Wash.)," said Sanders Bobi-ash. "So I use that with all my students - they all have accounts and websites. I also use YouTube to integrate video."
She was one of 50 teachers from around the world selected to participate in the Google teacher program.
Sanders Bobiash chooses to use technology in the classroom because it gets students excited and keeps them engaged.
"We are learning in a whole different way than we used to," said Sanders Bobi-ash. "It's not just the traditional pen and paper. We are sharing our work with everybody. We leave a lot of our work open for people to comment on and we do different projects with different classrooms around the world."
McLeod teaches math and calculus for Grades 9 to 12 at Campbell and about 25 rural communities. His method of teaching has proven successful - about 95 per cent of his students both online and in class successfully complete his calculus class.
After 12 years as a regular classroom teacher, he helped to pioneer the distance education model. In 1990, he began teaching calculus and trigonometry via satellite television throughout the province. McLeod then worked to improve outcomes.
Vendramin teaches new media and social studies for Grades 9 to 12 at O'Neill. He's also Google-certified and worked as a technology consultant with his school division before returning to the classroom.
He introduces the communications production technology course which teaches web, graphic design, audio, video and multimedia production and is working on the new media campus articulation program. Like Sanders Bobiash, he's always looking at new opportunities for students to learn.
