Manfred Einsiedler: 2018 Golden Owl
The student associations honour Professor Manfred Einsiedler with the Golden Owl for his commitment to teaching. In this interview, we ask him what the award means to him and what he considers excellent teaching to be.
The Association of Students at ETH Zurich (VSETH) along with the Association of Mathematics and Physics Students (VMP) award the Golden Owl to "particularly dedicated teachers who provide excellent teaching to their students".
Manfred Einsiedler, what do you consider to be excellent teaching and how do you achieve this in your lectures?
For me, it is very important to demonstrate the enthusiasm I have for the subject to my students. For example, when I prove a theorem in class and I'm excited about this, I try to convey this explicitly.
What do you think your students particularly enjoy about your lectures?
One thing that was really well received by the students are the electronic lecture notes that I developed together with my assistant Andreas Wieser over two years. In these, we use three-dimensional animations, for example, to improve the way we explain mathematical concepts.
What does the Golden Owl mean to you personally?
Naturally, I'm delighted to receive the award and I feel that certain decisions I made which were criticised at first have now been vindicated. For instance I changed the exam and put greater focus on proofs. The maths students in particular really appreciate this, as they get to learn and apply the theory as early as their first-year examinations. This gives them a better overview of how everything fits together.
You are the Vice Study Director and a member of the Teaching Commission in the Department of Mathematics. Which topics are currently being discussed in relation to mathematics teaching?
The split in the first-year examinations is definitely a topic. This test phase comes to an end this year, so now we need to decide what worked well and what didn't. In relation to increasing student numbers, we also often talk about whether we want to have written or oral examinations.
One thing that is also increasingly questioned is the close relationship that exists between the mathematics and physics degree programmes during the first year. In addition to physics, many other interesting links to other disciplines could be established, but we miss out on these in our study programme because we are so closely linked to physics.