Award winner demonstrates commitment to CTE

Meet Luke Becker, ACTE’s 2022 Teacher of the Year award winner, who hails from Region III. Becker works as an agricultural science and technology instructor and career and technical education (CTE) coordinator at Braham High School (BHS) in Braham, Minnesota. Over the span of his career, Becker has taught his students to see the possibilities, to set big goals. He provides opportunities — through hands-on, project-based learning — for students to reach measures of potential they never thought possible. With that objective, Becker has created a program that encourages them to explore.

Further, students enrolled industrial technology and agricultural science classes at BHS demonstrate a strong sense of purpose in their learning. And that’s no accident. Luke Becker wants to create solutions for actual problems and give students a purpose to what they are designing, building or inventing.

Pictured: 2022 ACTE national Teacher of the Year Luke Becker

Problem-based instruction brings learning to life.

When he thinks back to his own time in high school, the courses Becker enjoyed the most were the ones that featured “real-life, hands-on, problem-based learning.” He brought that desire for relevance with him into the classroom. “Everything I’ve ever done led me to [teach] CTE,” commented Becker. Because career and technical education has potential to solve the many challenges affecting the world today. In an interview with Rachel Rudisill, vice president of marketing and communications at Express Employment Professionals, he described a project students undertook to build a prosthetic foot for a pilot in the United States Air Force. “I know that’s not available to everybody,” Becker acknowledged. “But the problems that exist are available because there are so many of them. You pick one, and you run with it.”

Though he went on to tell Rudisill there’s no secret, we think he’s being modest. Luke Becker’s commitment to excel in meeting the needs of his students and employers, alike, is what made him ACTE’s 2022 national Teacher of the Year.

“I listen to what the students say, and to the community,” he continued. “When I started in Braham, I connected with every manufacturer and every business employing CTE students. And I asked them, ‘What are you seeing? What do you need? What can we do better?’”

The Teacher of the Year Award is sponsored by Express Employment Professionals.

ACTE’s Teacher of the Year award recognizes the finest CTE teachers at the secondary level. All winners demonstrate innovation in the classroom, commitment to their students and dedication to the improvement of CTE in their institutions and communities. And, as such, we would also like to recognize the exceptional group of finalists for this award:

  • John Lockhart (Region I)
  • Debbie Rowell (Region II)
  • Sherri Gleaves (Region IV)
  • Laura Miller (Region V)

“The nominees for ACTE Teacher of the Year are an incredibly distinguished group of educators who are inspiring the next generation to grow the current workforce,” said Bill Stoller, Express Employment Professionals CEO and chairman of the board. “I extend my congratulations and appreciation to this year’s honorees, as they continue to embrace innovative teaching methods that will develop the up-and-coming leaders of tomorrow.”

Did you know…?

Teacher of the Year Luke Becker and another 2022 award winner share a special bond. Becker studied with Brad Greiman, ACTE’s teacher educator of the year, at the University of Minnesota.

Learn more about ACTE’s awards.