APRIL - Teacher of the Month

Tim McCollum is our April “Teacher of the Month.” Tim has received numerous national, regional, and state awards for his work in the classroom. Included among those are the 2010 NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence (one of only five recipients nationally), 2008 Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence, 2006 Jefferson Award. He also received in 2003 the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, which was presented to him by then-President George W. Bush during a ceremony in Washington, DC.

During his tenure, he also had the opportunity to spend a semester working on a NASA project in Lake Placid and NASA’s Johnson’s Space Center in Houston. During that time, he assisted in the development of teaching curriculum for educators across the country utilizing photos taken by American astronauts. Tim is also a co-investigator for the NASA project Expedition Earth and Beyond and served on the National Science Board's Commission on 21st Century Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.

Tim received his B.S. in Education and M.S. degree in Zoology from Eastern Illinois University. Tim was a science teacher at Charleston Middle School. Tim is currently a member of the EIU's early childhood, elementary and middle-level education faculty. Tim is also serving as President of the Foundation Board of Directors.