He will use the prize to set up a writing course
UU lecturer Peter Pelzer is the 2024 Teacher of the Year in national prize
Peter Pelzer receiving the Teacher of the Year award. Photo: Max van der Weide
The prize was handed to Pelzer yesterday afternoon by the Minister of Education Robbert Dijkgraaf. This is the tenth edition of the Teacher of the Year award and Pelzer is the second UU lecturer to win it. The bioscientist Marc van Mil received the award in 2017.
Pelzer was also awarded UU's Teacher of the Year prize in 2023. At the time, the jury praised him for "how he includes the future challenges his discipline will face in his teaching".
Pelzer's first-year course uses a podcast (Under Planologists) and a book penned by him (Responsible for the Future) as part of the teaching. He is also one of the founders of Mixed Classroom, a course aimed at Master's students.
Photo: Max van der Weide
Poetic
Why does he want to start a writing course? “It is important that students appreciate the Dutch language,” Pelzer said at the ceremony. He thinks they should learn to write academically, poetically and essayistically. “I took a writing course as a PhD student and it changed my life.”
Pelzer's teaching style emphasises imagination and long-term thinking. The jury of the national prize praised him for his efforts to offer students hope and inspire them to reflect on social issues.
The prize is an initiative of the student organization ISO and is now awarded in collaboration with the Comenius Network for Educational Innovators. The jury consisted of last year's winner Birgit Boogaard, another teacher, two students and a member of ISO's board.
Nominees
The other nominees were Anke Liefbroer (Tilburg University), Hanneke Velthuijsen (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences) and Chris Attai (Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen). All four gave a small lecture about their profession at the award ceremony.
The ComeniusNetwork was founded in 2018 with the support of the Dutch cabinet. It now has almost five hundred members from secondary vocational education, higher professional education and university education. It is intended to share knowledge and develop a vision for improving education.
This calendar year, 7.6 million euros worth of grants are available in the Comenius programme for educational improvement. 1.4 million will be invested in secondary vocational education and 6.2 million were earmarked for higher education. The amounts can vary from 50,000 euros for a teaching fellow to 500,000 euros for a leadership fellow.