High-tech tech teacher

When the pandemic threw learning for a loop, Grafton High tech-ed instructor Kevin Gain developed a new way of teaching using videos and QR codes that worked so well it continues today and earned him a Teacher of the Year award

KEVIN GAIN’S YOUTUBE channel, which has clips describing how to create items using machines in his Grafton High School technical education classes, has more than 600 subscribers. Photo by Sam Arendt
By 
MITCH MAERSCH
Ozaukee Press staff

Grafton High School technical education teacher Kevin Gain faced a problem unlike any in his nearly three-decade career. But just as he teaches his students in construction, cabinetmaking, architectural design and engineering classes, he found a workaround.

Navigating hands-on teaching and learning during the pandemic led Gain to create lasting methods that work well in healthier times, and that kind of innovation earned him the Technical Education Teacher of the Year by the Wisconsin Technology Education Association.

It started when students attended school online during the pandemic and continued when they returned to in-person learning. Getting them caught-up in tech-ed classes when they also had ground to make up in other courses was difficult to navigate.

The longtime technical education teacher turned to his job’s namesake — technology.

“Kids were freaking out,” Gain said. “So I started training videos.”

Gain started a YouTube channel with video clips, first with simple projects to do at home, then showing how to put designs on T-shirts with the school’s garment printer to larger processes like the 25 steps of building a wooden clock. Students could even take safety assessments on machines. It was set up so Gain could see they completed them.

Students asking to come in to learn how to use machines got the same answer.

“Here’s the video. Then when you come into the lab, you are prepared,” Gain said.

He quickly saw the benefits of the clips, as did the Wisconsin Technical Education Association. Gain doesn’t know who nominated him for the award, but his three-page application included more links to his videos than prose describing his methodology.

Rather than 25 students crowding around the same machine, sometimes not in position to see what button Gain pushes, students get one-on-one teaching watching and listening to Gain in each video.

“It was just the most amazing thing to watch them so engaged during the pandemic,” he said.

Nearly 150 videos later, Gain finds the technique works well even after pandemic restrictions were lifted.

Now, students come to class with their laptops and headphones, watching and listening to their teacher online while he stands nearby in person to help.

“You’re doing more with less,” Gain said.

He doesn’t waste time with fancy intros or music; Gain gets right to what has to be done and ends the video. Students stay connected to the concise clips.

“Their attention span can be short if you’re standing up there talking to them,” he said.

Finding the links isn’t difficult. Gain has YouTube stickers on every item in his classrooms with a QR code. Students scan the sticker, then pull up the video via the code at their convenience to learn how to make the item.

Gain’s foray into video-making didn’t take long to spread. He trained some colleagues to print posters, and he ended up indirectly teaching scores of students.

“A lot of these aren’t my kids,” he said of his viewers. “Other teachers across the country asked for files.”

“It’s flattering now,” Gain said.

It’s also time consuming. One minute of video takes Gain about an hour to produce, between setting up tripods and the machines, writing scripts, shooting and editing in the WeVideo program. Sometimes, he shoots a video, then goes back to do voice overs. Gain bought the equipment himself and does much of the work on his own time.

“I don’t think people realize how much involvement it is,” he said.

A 2022 video showing young students how to make stickers out of their Easter egg drawings is one of his favorites. When those students get to high school, they’ll want to take tech-ed classes, he said.

“They were floored. To have that stepping stone in your head. They’re going to remember that,” Gain said.

While his field has come a long way in technological advancements since being looked down upon decades ago, Gain still reminds his students of their skills.

“These kids, they’re the smartest,” he said, adding that he tells his students, “You folks are the ones applying what you’re learning.”

Gain has adjusted his methods to teach students who are blind, deaf and have other disabilities.

He once helped a student confined to a wheelchair who was fixated on joining a NASCAR pit crew keep other career options open.

“Did you know this is my plan B?” Gain asked. “If I wouldn’t have a plan B, I wouldn’t know you right now.”

The passionate educator didn’t grow up intending to become a teacher. The West Allis Central alum was working in a sweaty cabinet shop for little money when his father asked him about his career plans. Gain loved taking tools apart when he was young, and only sometimes did they get put back together the same way. He did a 10-minute presentation in high school on building homes, but his dream of being a contractor faded away when he realized a lifetime of manual labor wasn’t for him.

Gain’s father encouraged him to try technical education, and Gain enrolled at University of Wisconsin-Stout, the premiere tech-ed teacher school in the state. He loved the plethora of possibilities the school provided.

“We were Frankensteining robots that don’t work,” he said.

After an eight-hour interview in Grafton, then-superintendent Ed Eckhardt offered him a job, and Gain never left.

“This is the most amazing job. Everything happens for a reason,” Gain said.

He started teaching shop in the mid 1990s, wheeling out a chalkboard saying, “OK, here are the safety rules.”

Two referendums since have expanded and upgraded the technical education department.

“I am extremely loyal to this community, not just the school but the community,” Gain said.

Now, his innovation and machines help market the school. All the “proud parent of” stickers on the backs of cars are printed by Gain. The “Thank you, vets” banner for the school’s annual assembly honoring the military is done on his Roland vinyl cutter printer he got using a $25,000 grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. that required matching funds from the district. He also printed the board in the pool listing the school’s swim and dive records.

Gain’s students have gone on to own cabinet shops and become construction managers.

“I can’t teach them everything, but I can at least give them a spark of interest to start that career for themselves,” he said.

Giving students a variety of skills makes them more marketable, he said. Some can earn 500 training hours before they set foot into the Carpenters Training Institute in Pewaukee, where they can get paid apprenticeships.

The award-winning educator, who lives in Saukville and open-enrolls his son to Grafton, said he doesn’t succeed by himself.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today without the School Board, the superintendent and the building principal,” Gain said.

He appreciates the support of the Grafton Education Foundation, which has awarded him all six grants he applied for.

Nearing his 30th year in his plan B career, Gain still loves his job.

“I have a blast. This is genuinely fun,” he said.

To see Gain’s channel, visit www.youtube.com/@kevingain5438/featured.

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