A few years ago I was at a conference at one of the Spanish universities in Barcelona. At that time, Spain had its own system of teaching in higher education and has just announced plans to reform this system to mimic the European teaching system universally applied in other countries of the Schengen zone. Spanish students protested against the change and I will never forget the drawing I saw created by the protesters. It depicted a “de-personalisation” machine which showed different, vibrant and imaginative people going in and grey, gloomy and uncharacteristic people coming out. This was the moment when I realised that preserving individual way of thinking is very important in any learning experience. Therefore, I believe that teaching should take into account individual differences of students and try to structure my lectures and seminars keeping in mind that students will have different levels of experience with my subject as well as different levels of interest in the subject.

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Learning new things should be fun. It should not only be valuable but also engaging. I have taught at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in small and large groups and think that learning process is a process of exchange where students receive information about the subject and communicate with the lecturer to create new knowledge. For example, a lot of great research questions asked in science came out of lectures from the intellectual exchange between professor and

students. A successful learning situation is therefore a process in which learning happens on both ends. Surely, the lecturer should bring more information to the classroom but unless both sides are engaged and trying to educate each other the learning process will fail.

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What would I like to achieve as a result of the learning process is that my students should have a good conceptual understanding of the classroom material. My father used to explain to me why education is important. He told me that an educated person is a person who can take any book (a book on any subject) off the bookshelf and make sense of it. This is what I expect from my students. Being able to think logically and critically evaluate the concepts which we discuss in class are key skills which I would like them to gain. That way, even if they do not know the answer to a particular question, they can derive the answer logically because they have confidence in their ability, conceptual knowledge and they are not afraid to try.

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I would like to encourage the students to think about theoretical concepts and to be able to evaluate them critically. I would also like them to take their knowledge from my course and transfer this knowledge into their daily lives as well as to other subjects. To promote critical thinking, my seminars are structured as open discussions which are particularly beneficial especially in small groups. The questions I ask often do not have unique correct answers but students are encouraged to show their knowledge of concepts and literature as well as develop argumentation skills to be able to prove their point.

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