Our Team
Stephen Collins is a founder and managing director of Socratic Brain, and a classroom teacher with 18 years of experience. He holds a BS in Physics from Duke University, and a Masters in Teaching through the ACE program at the University of Notre Dame. Stephen is currently the Science Department Chair and teaches Physics and AP Physics at Lusher Charter School in New Orleans, LA. Previously, he held a similar position at the Academy of the Sacred Heart, also in New Orleans.Stephen conceived of a web-based software application in 2001 to provide students immediate feedback on their Physics homework. He named the software Socratic Brain. Teaching in the one-to-one computing environment at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans, use of the software quickly became part of the classroom. With ongoing, continuous development, the software evolved in response to the needs of students and teacher alike.
This evolution of the software over more than a decade of classroom use has resulted in a tool that manages several time-intensive processes for teachers, allowing class time to be spent working with smaller groups at a variety of levels.
Steven has been invited to speak at national meetings of the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Physical Society, as well as the University of Wisconsin. His teaching has been recognized on a national level, garnering the Radioshack National Teaching Award and the Presidential Scholar Teacher Recognition Award. On a local level, Stephen leads workshops in Modeling Instruction and curriculum and assessment development.
Michael Dolan joined Socratic Brain as a managing director in 2014. He first became aware of Socratic Brain when some of his consulting clients were implementing inquiry-based learning into their high school Physics program. They were struggling to find a standards-based assessment and reporting system that would free up more class time for inquiry-based learning. After struggling to find helpful products in the marketplace, he found a blog about Socratic Brain. As he explored Socratic Brain's potential with his clients he became intrigued with the opportunity to make Socratic Brain accessible to teachers and students everywhere!
Mike also owns STI eLearning, an educational technology consulting business. In addition to his full-time efforts at Socratic Brain he continues part-time consulting with a focus on developing and implementing emerging, technology-assisted pedagogies that increase student achievement, teacher quality, and operational efficiency. In conjunction with Socratic Brain, Mike teaches high-school Physics using its software. Previously he has taught high-school math.
Mike's passion for the education sector began while running technology businesses for Tusker Group, Toshiba, and Emerson as CEO, Senior Vice President and General Manager, respectively. At all three companies, technology and education were key enablers, allowing hundreds of his employees to customize products and services for clients at a lower cost and higher quality than the mass-produced products they previously purchased. He believes our education system can similarly be reengineered from today’s mass-production educational model to a mass-customized learning model that allows a student to customize education to match her own learning style and pace.
Mike holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Master (MS) and Bachelor of Science (BS) in Engineering from the University of Michigan.