February 1, 2011, by Teaching at Nottingham

Valuing our teaching

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Paul Greatrix: “I think recognising excellent teaching is hugely important and before I came to Nottingham, I was impressed from afar with the Lord Dearing Awards because they seemed to me to be an explicit and overt way of really celebrating teaching within the University. They are very competitive and the award of them is made at graduation ceremonies in the most public forum the University can. So I think that that shows that the University is serious about recognising excellence in teaching.”

Katharina Lorenz: “I think there is certainly one thing which makes an effective teacher, is to respect the students.

“But I think that should always be at the heart of the whole thing. And I think that automatically turns one into an effective teacher in the sense of actually creating, well, impact really, creating a good learning environment for students.”

Saul Becker: “So, we’re teaching our students to be critical thinkers, and we’re teaching them that through our own example of being critical researchers. And I think that transferable skill about being a critical thinker will allow them to make judgements in whatever domain, whatever area of work they go into. It will help them to, not just to accept everything but to work out, ‘What do I need to know? What do I need to know more about? How can I go about finding that information and that knowledge’. And I think that’s the virtue and the benefit of coming to University, where research is at the core. But the teaching is also really critically important.”

Authors: 
Saul Becker (School of Sociology & Social Policy),
Paul Greatrix (Registrar’s Department), 
Katharina Lorenz (School of Humanities)

One of a series of interviews with staff that contributed to the development of the Teaching at Nottingham handbook.

This video was originally published as part of PESL’s Teaching at Nottingham collection.

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