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Chalk and talkBy Maria De CortWhat makes a great tertiary teacher?Civil engineering senior lecturer Dr RogerNokes says he doesn’t have the “eureka”answer, but believes his success boilsdown to three key ingredients — priority,passion and organisation.Nokes was one of New Zealand’s top 10tertiary teachers honoured for sustainedexcellence in their teaching field at thefifth annual Tertiary Teaching ExcellenceAwards, presented at Parliament in June.The awards, which are administered bythe New Zealand Qualifications Authority,recognise exceptional teachers who showoutstanding commitment to their subject.Nokes says he was honoured to receivethe award, which included $20,000 inprize money.“I don’t think those of us who receivedawards feel that we are special. We arepassionate about our students andteaching, and just try to do the bestjob we can.“When you are committed to a particularactivity it is very rewarding to have yourefforts recognised, and I am a committedtertiary teacher.”Nokes believes the Tertiary TeachingExcellence Awards convey a significantmessage to academics that excellence intertiary teaching is highly valued by centralgovernment and are a step in the rightdirection towards redressing a balancebetween research and teaching which hesees as “out of kilter”.He believes that universities in NewZealand are becoming too research-biasedand are guilty of putting teaching insecond place.“Whenever I get the opportunity I tend totry to raise the flag [on this issue],” saysthe former UC Teaching and LearningCommittee member. “It’s not intendedto downgrade research as an importantactivity, but it’s an attempt to try toredress the balance, which I think getslost. All tertiary institutions can do a lotbetter in terms of their teaching missionin my view.”At a personal level, Nokes says his successreflected his dedication to his students.“To me the most important part of my jobas an academic is helping young and notso-youngminds develop their potential.My students, whether postgraduate orundergraduate, are my first priority.“Therefore, I dedicate myself to providingthem with the best learning environment Ican, as, ultimately, their development isin their hands, not mine.”Priority is one of the three key conceptsthat Nokes says underpin his teaching. Thesecond is passion.“That’s passion for your subject and beingpassionate about teaching it. I actuallylove the stuff that I do in terms of doing it,but I love just as much trying to get otherpeople to be interested in it. If I can getmy students even a bit passionate aboutmathematics or fluid mechanics, which ismy area of research, then that gives me abig buzz.”Nokes stresses conveying passion isvitally important in order to engagestudents and encourage them to learn,especially in a large full lecture theatrewhere it can be too easy for students tonod off or be distracted.Part of keeping the students engagedcomes down to the third factor in Nokes’teaching formula — organisation. Hesays he puts a lot of time into planninghis courses and assignments and tries toprovide his students with a “road map”.“Students want to know: ‘Where am Igoing? What am I going to do here? Whydo I need to know this stuff and how’s itall going to fit together?’ I use the idea ofa road map and at the beginning of everylecture and at the end of every lecture I’mhooking back into that road map.”He also steers clear of all the latest gizmosand teaching aids, preferring the more oldfashionedtools of the trade.“My lectures are ‘chalk and talk’ mainly. Iuse powerpoint but only when it’s the besttool for a particular job.Dr Roger Nokes“I think pace is an important part oflectures. Over the years what I’ve actuallydone is remove material to try and give memore time to get the key ideas across andkeep the students engaged as opposed tooverwhelming them with material.“Something that is becoming clearer andclearer to me as I go on is that a goodlecture is not a lecture where you getthrough 20 pages of the text book. A goodlecture is where the students come outsaying, ‘Hey, I actually learned somethingfrom that’.”Nokes is on sabbatical leave in Perth untilthe end of the year, based in the Schoolof Environmental System Engineeringat the University of Western Australia.It is his first sabbatical leave in 18 yearsof academic life and he is relishing theopportunities it brings, both to devotetime to research and to refresh himselfpersonally and professionally.18 Canterbury Magazine