From January to March, 36 teachers across the U.S. and Canada competed to become the NHL and NHLPA's Future Goals Most Valuable Teacher of the Month.
Megan Campedel, a Penguins fan who teaches eighth-grade science at Avonworth Middle School, was voted the NHL and NHLPA's Future Goals Most Valuable Teacher of the Month for January.
And now, after three months and tens of thousands of votes, Campedel is one of three finalists competing to become the Most Valuable Teacher of the Year.
"It's been so incredibly special," said Campedel, who was nominated by Alyssa Mahramus, Everfi's director of implementation in western Pennsylvania. "I can't even believe I made it this far. I couldn't believe Alyssa was so wonderful as to nominate me for Teacher of the Month. And now that I've made it to Teacher of the Year, it's just incredible."
Voting is taking place this week, which, fittingly enough, is 2020 National Teacher Appreciation Week. Penguins fans can cast their vote for Campedel at NHL.com/MVT starting today and going through Friday.
"The support far and wide across Pittsburgh has just been amazing," Campedel said. "I'm a cheerleading coach, a figure skating coach and, of course, a teacher. And in all of the facets of my life, I couldn't believe how many people came out to support me and how many people shared the link and texted me, 'I'm voting for you every day.'
"It was just so overwhelming to see how many people were there to support me, even people that I hadn't spoken to in a long time. It was just so wonderful that they valued me as a teacher and a coach."
Campedel even did an interview with P.K. Subban - check it out below!
The Future Goals program partners with Everfi, a critical skills education platform, to teach skills with a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) sports curriculum - called Hockey Scholar - to help prepare students for success in life. Using hockey as a STEM learning vehicle, the Hockey Scholar program helps students understand the real-world applications of science and math principles.
This is Campedel's fifth year using the Future Goals Hockey Scholar program in her classroom. She assigns the 12 modules in a variety of ways, including supplemental reinforcement and enrichment throughout their physical science units. Every time a student finishes a module, they earn a hockey-related trophy - like a Zamboni or a hockey skate. When they complete all of the modules, they win the Stanley Cup, which Campedel said her students love.
"I've always tried to find a way to incorporate my love of skating and my love of hockey with the content we're learning," said Campedel, who lists Sidney Crosby as her favorite player. "The Future Goals software was the first step for me in doing that, as well as allowing kids to see the real world applications of physics, because that was something I didn't get when I was in school. To me, physics was just math."
For the current school year, Campedel broadened what she had been doing with Future Goals Hockey Scholar Program to create a project where her students chose a hockey or figure-skating related topic and create an investigation around it.
"For example, how does the mass of a puck affect its acceleration, or how does a figure skater's arm position affect her angular velocity," Campedel explained. "Then what was really great is that through Future Goals and Everfi, we were able to go to the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex and the kids were actually able to do their investigations on the ice."
Now that they have transitioned to virtual learning, Campedel's students are taking all of the concepts they learned in the fall through those projects and applying them to a personalized science investigation.
"It's so rewarding seeing how hard the kids are working," Campedel said. "I am so impressed. They've really been completing all of my assignments and not just to check a box, but to actually learn. Especially now that they're doing this personalized project, they're so excited about what they're learning because it's meaningful to them. It's just so great to see their excitement, although it's from afar."
Campedel is proud of her students, and her community is proud of her.
"I think Megan is just a perfect example of what we represent here in western PA," Mahramus said.
