CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICISTS

ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE DES PHYSICIENS ET PHYSICIENNES

The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) is pleased to announce that the 2005 CAP Medal for Excellence in Teaching is awarded to Dr. André Marziali, University of British Columbia for many exceptional qualities. Firstly there are his remarkable teaching assessments for a first year class who are typical harsh on their lecturers. He has developed a remarkable course using robots. Finally he uses cutting edge teaching techniques based on student- based learning which has produced a steady stream of senior colleagues attending his lectures.

Andre Marziali is recognized for the very high quality of his teaching, for his innovations in teaching first year physics, and for the introduction of an innovative and exciting second year project in our Engineering Physics program. This last initiative has attracted much attention from the media and raised the profile of university teaching in the public eye.

In 2000, he spearheaded initial trials of the Personal Response System, a remote control device for students to individually respond to discussion-provoking questions in large lecture classes. This system has now been adopted by his own and other departments. More recently, he developed a robotic-competition based course to train young Engineering Physics students in the essentials of smart instrument design. The final exam is a competitive event in which the autonomous robots built by the students have engaged in various activities including playing hockey and volleyball, and searching for and rescuing a small doll from the bottom of a cliff. This competition has generated much public and media interest. Andre has consistently earned very high teaching evaluations from them even though they consider his courses challenging.

For his outstanding teaching contributions, Andre has been the recipient of a UBC Killam Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2003, and a BC Innovation Council Young Innovator Award in 2004 for his research in bioscience and his prowess in innovative teaching.

The CAP's Medal for Excellence in Teaching Physics was introduced in 1996 and has been awarded annually since. Dr.Marziali will receive the 2005 Prize during the CAP's awards banquet to be held at the University of British Columbia on June 7th, 2005.

The Canadian Association of Physicists, founded in 1945, is a professional association representing over 1600 individual physicists and physics students in Canada, the U.S. and overseas, as well as a number of Corporate and Departmental Members. In addition to its learned activities, the CAP also undertakes a number of activities intended to encourage students to pursue a career in physics.

For more information, please contact:

Canadian Association of Physicists
Tel: (613) 562-5614
Fax: (613) 562-5615
E-mail: cap@physics.uottawa.ca