Saskatoon teacher takes home national award for teaching excellence
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presented a Saskatoon teacher with a national teaching award.
Andrea Regier, a science teacher at Bishop James Mahoney High School, was honoured Wednesday at the Prime Minister’s Awards for Teaching Excellence in Ottawa.
The annual awards recognize teachers for innovative teaching methods and achievements in education. Regier is one of 11 teachers in the country to receive the national-level award this year.
“I’m very happy for her, that her work is being recognized,” school principal Kim Pasloski said. “One of the challenges that teachers often get is that great work is not acknowledged enough in our school and community. And this is someone doing exemplary work.”
Pasloski said Regier regularly demonstrates leadership and creativity. For example, students in one of her physics classes staged a play about the Northern Lights.
“When students are up moving, they’re involved in their learning,” Regier said. “I take this approach with many different challenging concepts ... and it’s funny how seemingly difficult concepts suddenly become much easier for the students to understand.”
Regier’s high school students were the first to be involved in research with the synchrotron at the University of Saskatchewan, and she has coached students to compete in the Biology Olympiad. She will be the lead teacher for Bishop Mahoney’s new Health and Sciences Academy, a unique program in which students can immerse themselves in health sciences through specialized classes.
She was quick to give credit for her successes and inspiration to her parents, colleagues, and her own past teachers. Most importantly, she said her students make her happy to teach every day.