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Congratulations, Teacher of the year Oscar Quevedo Teruel!

Published Apr 22, 2020

Oscar Quevedo Teruel has been awarded "Teacher of the year 2019" by the Electrical Engineering chapter.

How does it feel to receive the award?
"I am very happy! To be honest, I never thought that I would receive this award! My main goal is to maximise student learning. I am very glad that the students found my lectures useful and that my efforts and thoughtful planning contributed to their learning."

What is your teaching philosophy?
"My teaching philosophy is based on critical thinking and self-examination. I listen to the students, teaching assistants, other teachers and industry and I accept their criticism. Then, I classify the aspects that I can improve in the teaching activities. To maximize the impact, I evaluate the possible actions in terms of the impact with respect to the required time for implementation. When one change is implemented, I focus on the next one. It is important to be consistent with the changes and accept that you cannot implement all the changes in a single year. It is a long-term activity. A course will never be perfect and the needs of the students evolve yearly. In my opinion, a course cannot be static, it is always evolving.

If I must emphasize two aspects that I consider important for teaching in 2020, I would emphasize these two:
- We must give value to our lectures. Nowadays, students have access to a lot of information. We cannot only repeat what you can find in books or in online courses, otherwise, the value of a physical lecture is very limited. In this sense, it is very important to teach courses in which we are experts and we do research, so we give up to date information to the students.
- The importance of labs and the connections to reality—the students need know that the maths and physics they are studying have a meaning. In other words, students need to know that their efforts are (or will be) useful. For example, in this specific course, I made a connection with practical designs, I introduced software and hands-on labs, and I take the students to visit Ericsson AB in Kista. With these activities, the students are more motivated to study maths and physics since they find them useful for future goals, including the possibility of finding prospective employment."

What is the best thing about teaching?
"To see how students grow! The main goal as a teacher must be to have a positive impact on the students. I am not speaking about maths or physics, but globally. You must be able to look at the students after their graduation and realize that they are more mature, more knowledgeable, and that they are able to solve more problems. Part of this little miracle is because we spend many hours to support them."