 Teaching
Award for Popular Academic
Staff and students have heaped
praise on an Engineering tutor who has been awarded the University's coveted
Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Dr Darwin Liang was given his
award - plus a £500 prize - in the 2004 July's degree ceremony.
Commending his teaching skills,
Vice-Chancellor Professor Chris Taylor told a packed hall: "Darwin has
expert subject knowledge in the technically challenging area of power
electronics, and this is combined with a natural gift for being able to
get across difficult material and ideas in a simple and understandable
way, often combined with a sense of humour."
Darwin says he uses a people-oriented
approach to teaching, with students treated as mature adults with respect.
"I am always approachable,
knowledgeable, friendly, trustworthy and helpful. I think that is what
makes a good teacher - a very student-friendly person who puts a lot of
effort into the care of one's students," he said.
His approach certainly seems
to work. Comments from Darwin's students include:
"I thank Dr Liang for his work
during the year. He taught us the things we didn't know and that's why
we are here. Thank you."
"I found this module excellent,
and I do not think it needs any improvement."
Darwin's approach to teaching
students stems from his personal experiences as an international student
and teacher, having studied and taught on three continents.
"I thoroughly enjoy my time
spent with students, who make it enjoyable to come back to work every
day even on a rainy day. I now have a lot of places to visit in the world
if I happen to retire and be able to afford to travel, as there will be
former students of mine waiting at their home country to entertain me
during my visit," Darwin joked.
In typical Darwin style, he
plans to use the £500 prize on materials for building a new personal computer
system to keep up with the latest technology and pass this knowledge onto
his own students in his Practical Computer Architecture module.
Displaying the same enthusiasm
which justly brought him the award, Darwin states his motto is "If you
cannot do it yourself, you do not have a right to teach it."
28 September
2004
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