DANIEL BLANCO ANIA
Radboud University

Abstract

“Teaching is the challenge to entertainingly instruct students new useful concepts and knowledge that they might need in their future careers, to show them how to think and be critical, and to motivate them. An excellent teacher needs passion, enthusiasm, creativity, dedication, perseverance, and meticulousness to achieve all the aforementioned goals”.

“Teaching is the challenge to entertainingly instruct students new useful concepts and knowledge that they might need in their future careers, to show them how to think and be critical, and to motivate them. An excellent teacher needs passion, enthusiasm, creativity, dedication, perseverance, and meticulousness to achieve all the aforementioned goals”. I take my lectures as a combination of a rock concert and a theatre play, where I know every single detail that I am presenting and all my teaching features are fully synchronized.

I was awarded the Radboud Education Award (prize for the best junior teacher of the Faculty of Science of Radboud University) in January 2019 and therefore a poster-sized portrait photo of me was hung on “The Wall of Fame” of the faculty (located at the most spacious room of the faculty, where the cafeteria is, in the most visible spot). A few months later, Thomas Boltje (an assistant professor) asked me for my teaching résumé. He mentioned that he wanted to nominate me for the KNCV (Royal Netherlands Chemical Society) Teaching Award (something that I had not heard of). I thought that it was a long shot, dozens of teache ...