2016 Medal Winners | francais

The 2016 CAP Award for Excellence in Teaching High School/CEGEP Physics (Quebec and Nunavut)

is awarded to

Rhys Adams

"I am honoured to have been nominated by my colleagues and students, and I am thrilled that I was chosen for this award. This award is a reflection of all the amazing people that I am surrounded by and make coming to class each day so enjoyable." winner citation

The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) is pleased to announce that the 2016 CAP Award for Excellence in Teaching High School/CEGEP Physics (Quebec and Nunavut) is awarded to Rhys Adams, Vanier College, in recognition of for his superb pedagogy of physics at Vanier College and for his leadership in developing an international program to train physics teachers in India and China in active learning pedagogies. announcement

Rhys Adams is a physics teacher at Vanier College in Montreal QC. His high respect for students and teachers alike helps leverage the important contributions he has made to physics education and student outreach. He has contributed significantly to the development of active learning activities in the classroom and thinks that physics education should bring the “real-world” into the classroom. But he also takes the classroom out into the world and has organized many field trips for students to experience and discuss physics. Rhys is quite passionate about active learning strategies and their impact on student motivation and has implemented many of the strategies that have been shown to increase physics motivation and conceptual understanding. In addition Rhys promotes student participation in competitions such as Science-on-tourne, Bridge building competition, and Robotics competition.

In 2011, Rhys started a research project at the Photonics Lab at McGill University. Rhys always wanted to do something that is a bit different, and he insisted on student participation in his research program. For the past five summers, he invites students to work with him at McGill on his photonics projects. This gives these students a remarkable opportunity to experience the research life very early in their science careers. Rhys has also been very active in a couple of international initiatives at Vanier College. These have involved Rhys travelling to India and China to help train physics teachers and students in these countries in active learning pedagogy.

These activities only give a glimpse of the myriad ways that Rhys promotes physics at the local, provincial and international levels. But above all, Rhys is simply a passionate and excellent teacher. nominator citation

- 30 -