Wolff-Michael Roth

Wolff-Michael Roth is Lansdowne Professor in Applied Cognitive Science in the Department of Curriculum and instruction of the University of Victoria's Faculty of Education. He holds a PhD from the College of Science and Technology at the University of Southern Mississippi and a MSc in physics from the University of Würzburg (Germany). His research focuses on knowing and learning across the lifespan in formal educational settings (elementary through tertiary) and in the workplace. He has received many awards for his research on teaching innovative science at the elementary school level, including the 1999 ""Science Educator of the Year"" award from the Association for the Education of Teachers of Science and an honorary doctorate from the University of Ioannina (Greece).

Roth's cross-disciplinary research is supported by research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and his projects involve collaborative work with colleagues, mentoring of post-doctoral fellows, and the training of students. Roth has also received SSHRC research grants for several other projects, including his work on the impact of social and environmental restructuring on environmental and human health in Canada, and his studies on how abstract knowledge develops from activity and the role that gestures play in this process.

After completing work on his master's degree in physics in Germany at age 25, Roth got his first teaching job in an isolated village in southern Labrador accessible only by plane, snowmobile, or boat. He considers the years he spent there teaching crucial to his development as a science teacher. After setting up a makeshift science lab in the basement of the village school, Roth broke his class into small groups and encouraged them to be scientists. Instead of answering questions from textbooks, he got his students to ask their own questions and pursue the answers by doing hands-on research.

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