Well it's very difficult to define what
a good teacher is, but I think that the
the first golden rule has to be a
commitment to doing it. If you're
going to teach well and you're going to
teach in Cambridge, where the students
are extremely talented and very well
motivated, then you really have to invest
a lot of effort into learning your
subject preparing your subject staying
up to date with your subject as well so
it takes time and it takes commitment to
make sure that you can deliver the best
possible lecture. So I think if the
audience can see that you're engaged and
they can see how they fit into the
picture too then that works for a very
nice dynamic and constructive lecture
environment. I always try to explain
as much as possible where I come from,
where I fit into this picture that I'm
presenting and also I like to try to
explain where the students fit in as
well. In all of my lectures I'll ask
questions to the students about, why do
you think things are a certain way, the
kind of questions that we can't come up
with hard or fast answers to. Why does
the hormone growth hormone why is it
involved not just in growth but also in
the response to fasting, where you'd
think that if you weren't eating the
last thing you'd want to do is grow. Why
do you think that is, let's have a
discussion about it, maybe come and give
me some of your ideas after the lecture.
And if you can get the students to think
about the material, not just assimilate
material, but actually think about it and
generate ideas of their own that's when
I think you've done a really good job
that's what I would seek to achieve. You
can be told everything in a lecture, you
can go and look up things in papers, you
can revise, you can get a hundred percent
in an exam. But that's not doing science,
doing science is all about looking at
when things go wrong, interpreting data
where no interpretation exists that you
can look up and then knowing what
experiment you can do to pursue this
further and actually get to the answer
that you're seeking. And it's only really
in practical classes that students can
do this and they can engage with with
real science, so it's absolutely vital
for all of our science students, medical students,
veterinary students and of course the
natural scientists, to actually get
involved to do hands-on practical work
and to get a feeling for what happens in
a lab environment and how it doesn't
always work smoothly part of the
challenge is overcoming those
difficulties that you come across. And
when you study an area of physiology
which is as esoteric as the function of
the middle ear and small mammals, which
is what I do for my research. I like to
be able to say that I'm also
contributing to society by teaching
medical students, for example teaching
veterinary students and teaching
scientists, so I certainly enjoy the idea
that what I do benefits them and
ultimately benefits society.
