Voting starts in May for a National Hockey League contest in which a Chartiers Valley Middle School teacher is one of three finalists.
Scott Caplan was named the NHL and NHL Players Association’s Future Goals Most Valuable Teacher, presented by software provider SAP, for March, qualifying him for potential honor of Most Valuable Teacher of the Year.
Caplan received March’s Most Valuable Teacher recognition from among 20 nominated educators. Teachers were selected for their use of the NHL and NHLPA-sponsored Future Goals program, which teaches students key science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills using interactive game play and real-world scenarios.
Penguins player Casey DeSmith notified Caplan with a video message that he won the title of after receiving the most fan votes. Along with the recognition, Caplan received an autographed Penguins jersey and $10,000 from presenting sponsor SAP, which will fund new technological devices for Chartiers Valley School District.
An avid Penguins fan, Caplan utilizes Future Goals because of how well it covers physical science and STEM principles in a way that is fun for his students.
“My favorite part is the way the activities are set up,” he said. “Just like the work we do in class there is a pretest, lesson, lab activity, collection of data, analysis of data, drawing conclusions, and post-test. All of this is done in a fun, interactive manner with realistic hockey situations.”
Caplan, who has been teaching for 26 years, enjoys working with science, learning new information and passing it on to his students. His favorite part of teaching is the special moment when the “light bulb” goes on and a student figures out a solution to a problem or starts to understand a concept.
“STEM is used in hockey in everything from the proper ice temperature, to the angle used to bank a pass, to the shape of the curve on a skate blade,” Caplan said. “Students have commented that they knew answers to questions on standardized tests because they remember the game in Future Goals.”
