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NOMINATION

Name of Nominee: RNDr. Slavomír Tuleja, PhD.

Date of birth: 1974

Institution (Employer of Nominee):

Gymnázium armádneho generála Ludvíka Svobodu

Komenského 4

066 51 Humenné

Slovakia

Award:EPS Physics Education Division Award for Secondary School Teaching

Nominated By:Slovak Physical Society;Division of Didactics of Physics, Institute of Physics, P.J.ŠafárikUniversity in Košice, Slovakia

Slavomír Tuleja is an excellent representative of most active and influential high school teachers in Slovakia. He has been working as a regular service physics teacherfor 9 years. For the last 5 years he holds a position of a chair of the Physics Committee that involves all physics teachers at school. During his careerhe has been teaching physics implementing up to date trends such like IT technologies and modern teaching methods.His most remarkable outcomes are as follows:

  • In 2002 as one of the pioneer users of Java Applets in teaching physics in Slovakia he was awarded the first prize in the national competition Thebest teacher’s websiteby Infovek, a Slovak society responsible for implementation of IT into secondary and basic schools.
  • After initiating the project of national curricular reform of pre-college schools in 2008 he started to apply modern teaching method,Just in Time Teaching,implemented in Moodle e-learning environment. Having been a co-author of the ESF project his schoolwas given more than 16 000 € for physics laboratory equipment.
  • Apart from regular teaching he deals a lot withtalented students.Over the past eight yearsdozens of his studentshavebeenparticipating atThe Physics Olympiad. His students regularly hold first places at regional and national level.In 2004,his student Boris Gažovič successfully represented Slovakia with honourable mention at the 35thInternational Physics Olympiad. Slavomír also works as a member of the Slovak Board of Physics Olympiad.
  • His brilliantcompetenceto seek and educate students with high academic ability was rewarded by series of first prizes inother national competition called SOČ, the student pre-college science work. Two students´ science projects deserve special attention. The national second prize project Quantum cryptography represented Slovakiasuccessfully atthe 2008 world’s largest international competition Intel ISEF.The national first prize project Feynman’s Wobbling Plate having been presentedas a scientific articlebecame known as a highly appreciated and recommended paper of the prestigious American Journal of Physics March Issue 2007.
  • Slavomírcontinuously increases his physics backgroundsimultaneously with regular teaching. In 2006 he received Ph.D. degree in Physics. Moreover, in 2006 he took part at the Workshop Teaching General Relativity to Undergraduates organized by American Association of Physics Teachers.
  • Heachieved remarkable results in science popularization among students and general public.In 2004 he involved all students of his school intothe event of the Venus transit. Furthermore, his website Virtual Science belongs to the most attended science webpages in Slovakia.
  • He is a co-translator of several science popularization books for general readers into Slovak: Feynman’s book QED, The Strange Theory of Light and Matter,Goodstein’s book Feynman’s lost lecture and Spacetime Physicsby Taylor and Wheeler,being published this year.

Mentioned reasons together with Slavomír’s extraordinary commitment, enthusiasm and restless activities in teaching and popularization of physics at regional and national level in Slovakiashould be acknowledged. These facts truly make him to be laureate of the considered award.