Lecturer of the Year 2017
Who’s got that little something extra?
Dos and Don’ts
What makes a good teacher and what makes a bad one? We asked students for their opinions. Here are the most frequent responses.
Do
Be passionate and positive
Treat students as equals
Use interesting visuals
Explain things in multiple ways and use analogies
Be empathetic
Don’t
Expect students to memorise information
Use dull powerpoints with lots of text
Assume students have prior knowledge
Focus on small details without giving a bigger picture
Be patronising or dismissive of students’ ideas
When Malvina Nissim received an email telling her she was nominated to be 2016’s Lecturer of the Year, she was overjoyed. ‘I do my best in my work, but it still comes as a beautiful surprise if the students see the same’, she says. ‘I am often very critical towards myself, so it gave me a big confidence boost.’
2015 winner Niels Taatgen reacted similarly. ‘It feels like imposter syndrome, and you think, am I really the best teacher of the whole university?’ he explains. ‘I don’t think so, I just got lucky!’
Soon, another professor will join Nissim and Taatgen in the RUG’s hall of fame. Ten nominees from across all faculties will gather in the Aula in the Academy Building on April 12 to give short lectures, after which a jury of students and staff will choose 2017’s Lecturer of the Year.
The winner will receive a grand prize of 5,000 euros, a work of art, and the opportunity to create and teach a course for the Honours College.
Challenging
‘I try to think about the perspective of the students’, says Taatgen. ‘I turned away from long lectures, because I notice that if I go to a talk, I don’t remember most of it. So how can I expect students to remember much from a two-hour lecture? I try to think about alternatives.’
Malvina Nissim is a member of this year’s jury, and is well aware that being a good researcher is not the same as being a good teacher. ‘Someone can be really knowledgeable, but that knowledge has to come through’, she says. ‘Being clear even when explaining a complex subject is a special quality that I appreciate enormously.’
Fellow jury member Jan Riezebos agrees. ‘It is not the presentations which will convince me of the winner, but the reports on the interactions with students and the innovative ways a lecturer supports them in their learning process’, he says. ‘The best lecturers are not just entertaining, or helping students to master their course, but are really challenging them to further their development.’
Not just knowledge
These are also qualities that students look for. ‘Showing expertise is important, but more importantly, a good teacher creates a space in which there is room to ask critical questions, have discussions, and which challenges students to think rather than repeat’, says Master’s student Maarten Aarse.
Physics student Lara Skrabal agrees. ‘The worst is a teacher who only knows how to explain their subject in one way, because not everybody’s brain is wired the same’, she says. ‘Good explaining means that they tie in knowledge you already have, but also hint at what you can do with the knowledge in a larger context.’
Students also need to feel supported, says English Language and Culture student Mayte Moreno. ‘It is very important for the teacher to be empathetic with students, to understand their difficulties and make them feel understood and motivated.’
Judge
Léon Melein, an information science Master’s student and a member of student party Calimero, is one of the two student members of the jury. He’s looking for lecturers who provide opportunities for class discussion, who provide timely feedback, and who make students feel like they’ve learned something – even if they didn’t expect to. ‘Students are the recipients of teachers’ work’, he says. ‘They might not know everything about the subject, but they can judge very well whether the knowledge of the teacher is effectively transferred.’
The award is important for students and teachers alike. ‘Lecturers work long hours, even on their weekends and vacations. This award gives back some of the appreciation we lack during the rest of the year’, he says. The award is also a good platform to show good examples from teaching, so that other professors can take note.
Nissim also thinks that the award is important. ‘Teaching is what makes our universities exist, otherwise we would just have research centres’, she says. She explains that because there is so much pressure to publish research, teachers get little recognition for the fact that they dedicate over half of their time to teaching.
‘We shouldn’t forget that teaching is invaluable if we want to train future researchers. I very much appreciate that the RUG established an official way to celebrate excellence in teaching’, she says.
Something extra
Since winning, Nissim has given a TEDx talk and will teach her own module at the Honours College next year – an experience which Taatgen also appreciates. ‘But those lectures are in the evening, so I had to do some explaining at home’, he warns this year’s nominees.
Before the big day, Taatgen has some tips for the nominees. ‘Don’t try to cram a 12-minute talk into 9 minutes. And try to engage the public, even if only for a few minutes. Let them do something,’ he says. He shares advice on what the jury will look for. ‘All of the nominees tick all the boxes. So they are looking for something extra.’
All students agree on one thing: a good teacher must show passion. ‘This is the most important quality for someone to qualify for Lecturer of the Year’, says Aarse. Maybe this is the something extra that the jury is looking out for.
The Lecturer of the Year award ceremony takes place on Thursday 12th April from 14:30 onwards, and all students and staff are invited to attend.