Where do you get your educational passion from?
As a lecturer within the Biology programme, I get my educational passion from, among other things, a desire to make the world a little better and greener. I firmly believe that as university lecturers, we make an impact through the education we provide. We help students acquire knowledge and skills that they can use for the rest of their careers, thus enabling them to contribute to the challenges of the future in various ways. In addition, I simply get a lot of energy from helping others, something you naturally do continuously while teaching.
What teaching moment has always stayed with you?
The start of my course in September this academic year. I have been teaching this course for several years now, after which you start to wonder if you still like it as much as in the beginning. Also, of course, because I noticed that I was a lot less nervous this time than before. So: is it becoming too much of a routine? As I walked towards the lecture hall, however, I noticed that I was walking around with a smile on my face. While this surely looked a bit crazy, for me it was a realisation and confirmation that I still get a lot of pleasure out of teaching this course and teaching in general!
What did you learn from your students?
Not to assume that, as a lecturer, you know exactly which way students learn best, but rather to be open to feedback and actually do something with it. Students have given me a lot of insight into their way of learning but also, for instance, about what they find interesting and less interesting. I also notice that these aspects can vary a lot from student to student and that therefore offering a certain degree of flexibility can really help students.
What are you proud of as a teacher?
Together with the TIP and one of our educational innovators, I wrote a plan two years ago to further develop a course. We were able to implement this plan thanks to the Comenius grant we received. Among other things, we developed seven (!) digital escape rooms in which students had to collectively apply their learned programming skills. This turned out to be a substantial project on which many people collaborated. I am very proud of the end result and am very curious to see how the students will like the escape rooms when they are offered in the course next academic year.
Read more about the Comenius project
What was your biggest teaching moment as a teacher?
That it pays to innovate in your teaching. Not only to get renewed energy in the courses you teach yourself, but also to enter into interesting new collaborations from which you learn a lot as a lecturer. And besides that, it is of course great to see how motivated students get from educational activities that are just that little bit different.
What would you like to try out again in your teaching?
As part of the innovation plans I mentioned earlier, we also wanted to organise a 'boss battle'. In this, students will have to compete against me as a lecturer. Together, we will make practice exam questions under time pressure and see if any students can beat me. Unfortunately, the development of such a 'boss battle' has not materialised yet, but it seems to me a very fun and useful format for students to get to grips with the course content and prepare well for the exam.