When Jakob Munkholt Christensen leaves home on a Monday morning to travel to DTU Chemical Engineering, where he holds the position of associate professor, he is often wearing his AaB football jersey. Not because he is looking forward to kicking a ball around, but because every Monday morning he teaches a course in how to carry out an industrial chemical process to a class comprising around 80 third-semester BEng students. And at that time of the day, it often takes something special to attract the attention of the students, still sleepy after the weekend.
“I’m probably the only lecturer who teaches classes in an AaB football jersey—the Danish premier league team from Aalborg, my home town,” relates the 31-year-old Jakob Munkholt Christensen.
“The jersey lightens the mood and often attracts catcalls, depending on the result from the previous weekend’s matches. Especially because many of the students are from Copenhagen, which is home to a number of competing clubs. It’s all about finding a personal style. If I can communicate with the students on equal terms, I hope they will find it easier to relate to the material I’m teaching.”
"I’m a bit of an introvert, and I have something of a phobia about addressing a large audience. "
Jakob Munkholt Christensen, associate professor at DTU Chemical Engineering
Extremely pedagogical
And there is evidence to suggest that Jakob Munkholt Christensen may be onto something. At the Commemoration Day party earlier this year, he was awarded the title of 2015 Lecturer of the Year for the BEng study programme, because he has a remarkable ability to communicate the subject matter, he is extremely pedagogical, and he is committed to making sure the students can keep up. That said, his career as a lecturer got off to a rocky start when he took up his new position 18 months ago:
“I’m a bit of an introvert, and I have something of a phobia about addressing a large audience. The first few times I had to teach, I was almost sick before the start of the class. However, I must say that things have improved as I’ve become more experienced,” adds Jakob.
His recipe for successful teaching takes as its starting point his own experience at DTU, where he was one of the quiet students who sat in the back row of the lecture hall, listened politely to the lectures and then went back to his room to think about what he had heard. Therefore, his advice is: work slowly, steadily and systematically through the material. and create a supportive atmosphere.
Cold sweat
“I can almost remember the cold sweat that used to run down my spine when some of the lecturers began asking questions to students at random after a long lecture: ‘What do you think about ...?’ As an introvert, I could barely remember my own name in situations like that. So even though it is one way to assure the attention of the class, I’m not a big fan of calling on individual students,” explains Jakob.
He thinks that the best way to motivate the students is to involve and stimulate them. Jakob Munkholt Christensen currently uses an e-learning tool in his lectures to evaluate the semester. It is a kind of ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ quiz related to the material. While he asks the questions using slides, the students answer via their tablets.
“The game brings in a dimension of competition, which stimulates the students. At the same time, it lets me know if there are any areas I need to go over again in preparation for the coming semester. But I don’t think we’ll ever reach the point where we provide remote learning. This would naturally destroy the social camaraderie. And it would spell the end of ‘the personal touch’.”
- Meet the students on equal terms; wearing a football jersey, for example.
- Generate a supportive atmosphere where the students are not afraid to ask questions.
- Adopt a pedagogical approach. Work your way slowly through the syllabus, one small step at a time.