By Dave O'Brien
Record-Courier staff writer
A retired middle school teacher with more than 30 years experience and another decade serving a high-technology classroom at Kent State University, Patricia Mazzer is the recipient of the Kevin Coleman Foundation's 2007 Educator of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award.
"It was a total surprise," said Mazzer, who taught for 32 years at Brown Middle School in Ravenna before retiring in 1999. "They didn't say a word to me until after the announcement came."
Mazzer, a resident of Brady Lake, is starting her 10th year working in KSU's AT&T Classroom in Moulton Hall. There, she helps design ways to integrate technology into the curriculum for students grades K-12 and their teachers.
"I monitor the pre-service teachers who do field experience in the classroom," she said. "I help researchers when they need materials or lesson plans, coordinate filming, work on the selection of teachers for the next cohort, do interviews and observations and match them up with research projects we have pending."
Mazzer was nominated for the award by Dr. Dale Cook, director of the Research Center for Educational Technology at KSU. Cook said Mazzer was the first teacher in the AT&T classroom on its opening day -- Feb. 2, 1999.
"Her experience in the classroom was so positive for us, I thought we really need somebody to help other teachers who are going to follow in her footsteps, and I thought she would be an excllent person to bring in to the clarroom for that purpose," he said. "She's always full of ideas and resources, and she's a lifelong learner herself, without question."
Cook said Mazzer has been "very effective" in helping integrate technology with the teaching curriculum and a "godsend" to the program.
"She's a model of integrity, a great person, and so unassuming with the teachers she works with, she's able to be very effective. She gives of her personal time without a second thought, and he's there for anything and everything, more than we could ever expect anyone to do," he said.
Mazzer and this year's other honorees will receive their awards and $1,000 during a March 22 ceremony at Aurora High School.