Prof. Tony Key

Professor Emeritus

Brief CV

M.A., Aberdeen (1960); D. Phil., Oxford (1964); Lecturer, University of Durban (1964-66); Post Doctoral Fellow, Toronto (1966-68);  Visiting Scientist, Fermilab (1968-70); Associate Chair; (Undergraduate Studies (1980-86); Associate Chair (Graduate Studies 1986-1992);  Acting Chair (1993). Faculty of Arts and Outstanding Teaching Award (Sciences, 2002), Canadian Association of Physicists Medal for Excellence in Teaching (2003). 

Research Interests

Previously my research interests were in the area of experimental Particle Physics, but in the later years of my career I became interested in cognitive and psychological issues in the fields of communication and education, with particular application to the learning of Physics at the university level. This included a variety of aspects of graduate education, including teaching evaluation, curriculum design, and the learning experience of graduate students in Physics.

Now retired, I continue to teach a course at Woodsworth College, aimed at senior Ph.D. candidates entitled Teaching in Higher Education. I regularly present workshops and seminars on teaching methods, problem solving, and learning difficulties to teachers within the university and at conferences and seminars around the world.

Selected Publications

Milton From, Tony Key and Robert Smidrovskis Measuring the speed of sound in a solid in the undergaduate laboratory" The Physics Teacher 38,76-77(2000)

Jan van Aalst and Tony Key, Preprofessional students’ beliefs about learning physics, Can.J. Phys., 78, 73 6pp (2000)

Zahra Hazari, Tony Key and John Pitre "Interactive and affective behaviors of laboratory demonstrators, Electronic Journal of Science Education, ISSN 1087-3430 Vol. 7 - No. 3 - March 2003 . http://unr.edu/homepage/crowther/ejse/hazarietal.pdf . 

A. Key, A Course on Communication for Physicists, Physics in Canada, Vol.59, No.6 (2003), pp.331-334.

Z. Hazari and T. Key, Student Evaluations of Teaching Assistants: Is there a Grade Bias?, Physics in Canada , Vol.62, No.1 (2006), pp15-18.

Tony Key, Nuclear and Radiation Physics in Medicine, (World Scientific, 2014) ISBN978-9814566803