Todd McPeak is an Education Technology specialist who joins Cherry Gulch Academy with over 20 years experience teaching math at all levels, arithmetic through AP Calculus and AP Statistics. Todd has also served as a mentor-teacher and instructional coach (Courses4Teachers, University of the Pacific), and as a district-wide math director (Leadership Public Schools), supporting public and charter schools throughout California, Washington State, and in Washington DC. Todd holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics (University of Washington, 1998), post-graduate Teaching Credentials in Math and Economics (Chapman University, 2004), and a Master’s Degree in Education Technology (California State University, 2010).
As a software engineer, Todd served as lead developer for the FlexMath project (CK12 Foundation, Palo Alto, CA), creating interactive lessons and technology-integrated textbooks deployed through computers in a series of pilot intervention programs that ultimately achieved the largest recorded student proficiency gains in the NCLB era. With a focus on strong classroom management and Inductive Pedagogy, this repeatedly successful approach accelerated severely disenfranchised learners, 3 – 6 years below grade level, to a state of proficiency within a single academic year.
This year at Cherry Gulch Academy Todd is supporting the launch of our project-based School of Computer Science, offering industry-recognized certification and mini-degrees (Zenva Academy) in Programming, Mobile Web Applications, Digital Media, 3D Modeling, and Game Development. Students will experience non-linear pathways to build a professional portfolio of coding, art, and gaming projects, as well as earn accreditation with high-demand skills including: Visual Studio Code, C++, JavaScript, HTML, MySQL, Database Development, Photoshop, Premiere, AfterEffects, Adobe Animate, Blender, Unity, and Unreal.