ARCHIVED—Christopher Koop

Year: 2009 – Province: Manitoba

Certificate of Excellence Recipient

Steinbach Regional Secondary School
190 McKenzie Avenue
Steinbach MB R5G 0P1

Principal: Luis Reis
School Tel.: 204-326-6426
School Fax: 204-326-1113
School Website: www.srss.ca

Subjects and Grades Taught: Media studies in grades 11 and 12

"Write down 10 things you would find in a mad scientist's lab?" This is a creative exercise Christopher Koop sometimes assigns his students. They could easily be forgiven if they chose to answer it by simply listing the things they saw around them. If he isn't really "mad," Mr. Koop is very, very passionate about everything he does, and he wears that passion on the sleeves of the superhero costume he dons to lead cheers for school teams and shows it on his classroom walls—every inch of which are covered with student artwork.

Teaching Approach

Mr. Koop, who has been teaching since 1998, looks beyond the skills he is teaching his students to develop well-rounded individuals. His assignments help increase students' awareness of, and adherence to, industry-standard design principles. He equips students with a "tool kit" of techniques they can draw on to complete any job they are given. And, he involves parents by putting student assignments up on a website and encouraging parents to check the site and hold their children accountable for their work.

Outstanding Achievements

• Mr. Koop prepares students for their careers by involving them in projects to produce graphic arts materials, such as logos, advertisements and web pages, for local businesses and non-profits, such as a women's shelter. Students not only do the work, but also meet with the business people involved to get a full understanding of, and practice with, the listening and other interpersonal skills they must develop to supplement their technical skills.
• He created Film Club, an extracurricular course in which students make and edit short films. The resulting creations became so popular that he launched an annual film festival to show them all. Now in its seventh year, the festival is held at a local theatre so that the public can attend. In a typical year, more than 500 tickets are sold. Due to its popularity, the course evolved into a credit course for which Mr. Koop wrote the curriculum.
• Mr. Koop's students also present their work at a local art gallery. Their pieces gain considerable exposure in the community, remaining on display for an entire month.
• The uses Mr. Koop puts information and communications technology to at the school extend far beyond the classroom. He enhanced the school website with special features, such as pop-ups that promote school events; he produced a full-length orientation video for incoming Grade 9 students and their families and will soon begin work on a web-based video that takes viewers on a virtual tour of the school using a central character superimposed on shots of the school using a green screen; and, in conjunction with the computer programming instructor, enabled on-line voting for various school initiatives.

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