Colin Ducolon
Professor; Program Director
Degree Program:
Early Childhood/Elementary Education
Program Description:
Using the city and surroundings to teach teachers
Higher education
Colon Ducolon treasures the freedom and flexibility that Champlain College offers him in teaching his education and human sexuality classes. "It really impacts the students from day one," he says. At some colleges, education students might have to wait until their senior year to come face to face with young students. Not so at Champlain. "Our Education students are directly involved with elementary, middle and high school students from their first year through their fourth year," says Ducolon, who is director of the Early Childhood/Elementary Education program. "It is this direct involvement with students in local schools throughout their years at Champlain that makes our programs so valuable and unique."
Teaching on the street
Colin appreciates Champlain College's setting on the hill overlooking Lake Champlain and downtown Burlington. He likes to use the city itself as a classroom and teaching tool.
"My students and I recently spent an afternoon down on the Church Street Marketplace following a series of tasks I have created for my Social Studies Methods course," Ducolon says. "Thirty of us walked down there and used the information embedded in the sidewalks to apply our knowledge of longitude and latitude. We determined the coordinates of particular streets and stores. We planned tasks we could give upper-elementary students."
That outside-the-box class isn't an isolated case, either. "My classes are based on my belief that we all learn best when we are directly involved, when we are actively engaged," Colin says. "So I try to have those interactions happen in all of my classes."
Creating confidence is the key
It is this type of ingenuity and interaction that Colin hopes to pass on to his students. "I want them to feel confident that they can be a teacher who continues to learn." And he believes that the atmosphere at Champlain encourages that kind of experimentation.
Colin earned his BS from the University of Maryland and his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts. He keeps current in the education field by attending local and national conferences. At home, he enjoys the challenge of gardening in Vermont's northern climate.
Sleepy-eyed, I stepped out of the guest bedroom on one of my last mornings in this small town.