Appreciation for teachers during UTQ certification

In this message, Geurts highlighted the important role that lecturers play for young, inquisitive minds. After all, they are the ones who provide students with the tools to engage in public debate, to search for solutions and to work on their self-confidence. In turn, the University Teaching Programme (UTP) provides teachers with tools to invest in themselves and to further develop their own teaching style. This is done in mixed groups, across faculty boundaries to learn from each other's perspectives.

Over the past six months, 96 VU teachers from no fewer than eleven faculties and departments have obtained their UTQ at VU Centre for Teaching & Learning. What else did the rector want to pass on to them? "Stay close to yourself. If you are authentic then you are credible, and precisely then you can mean the most to your students."

Feedback, innovation and mental health
During the UTQ certification, the floor was also given to Manon Hofman, coordinator of Education and Research of the University Student Council. Hofman shared the results of a survey on what VU students experience as the most important points of attention for teachers. The top 3 from the results are feedback, innovation and mental health. Even when students do not show it, feedback is very important to them; according to them, it is what they learn the most from. Innovation contributes to the quality of education; students experience it as pleasant when a teacher goes along with the times, for example by using Mentimeter or other tools that increase interaction. Mental health is about that of the teacher; students know that the workload at university is often high and feel it when things are not going well with the person they are taught by. The students therefore hope the teachers will also take good care of themselves

More information about the University Teaching Programme
Read more about the different possibilities to obtain a UTQ on the VU Centre for Teaching & Learning website.