Peter Hintz: 2022 Golden Owl
The student associations VSETH and VMP have chosen to honour Professor Peter Hintz with the 2022 Golden Owl. In this interview, he talks about what this award means to him and what he considers to be excellent teaching.
What does it mean to you to receive the Golden Owl?
I am very honoured to be receiving the Golden Owl. It also came as a pleasant surprise as I am receiving it after my first year at ETH. The award signals to me that my approach to teaching is largely on the right track – which is very useful to know, since I spent the 10 years prior to ETH in the USA, where the teaching and learning culture is quite different. It fills me with joy and confidence that I seem to be able to connect well with the students here at ETH.
The extraordinary efforts of the teaching assistants are absolutely crucial for the success of my courses, and I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of them; the award demonstrates that their efforts have had a real impact on the students. I have learned a great deal, especially from my experienced head TAs, about useful teaching resources and about how things are done at ETH
“It fills me with joy and confidence that I seem to be able to connect well with the students here at ETH.”Peter Hintz
What do you consider to be excellent teaching and how do you achieve this in your lectures?
My main goal is to get the students excited about the subjects I’m teaching – and the main tool I use to achieve that is my own enthusiasm! Mathematics is full of beautiful ideas and results, and the courses I have been teaching so far also offer wonderful connections to physics. I also carefully prepare each lecture down to every single technical detail and example, but at the same time I try to always keep the students focused on the bigger picture or the long-term goal of whichever subject we are discussing.
Another important aim of my teaching is to adapt to the needs of the students, and lecture for them rather than to them. I do my best to offer students lots of opportunities to ask questions or clarify things with me (or even point out my mistakes!). I often spend part of the break and a substantial amount of time after each lecture discussing the material with students who want to know more – it’s really important to me that students don’t feel there is a huge barrier between me and them if they want to approach me. Hearing about the concerns and questions that students have allows me to calibrate the content, speed and difficulty level of my lectures to their needs.
“Another important aim of my teaching is to adapt to the needs of the students, and lecture for them rather than to them. I do my best to offer students lots of opportunities to ask questions or clarify things.”Peter Hintz
Actively engaging the students has been something of a challenge in the types of courses I have been teaching so far, as they often involve quite a lot of theory before it’s possible to dive into the interesting examples. But tools like EduApp, which I use for regular anonymous live multiple-choice tests, are simple ways to get students to participate, test their own understanding and give me immediate feedback on what I have taught well and what I need to explain better.
At this point, I would also like to express my sincere thanks to the Educational Development and Technology (LET) department, in particular Pia Scherrer and Karin Brown, for offering a wonderful workshop in which I learned many tips for effective teaching. I suspect that the mere fact that the students saw me actively taking steps to improve my teaching through the LET workshop made them extra appreciative of my efforts.