Bijoy Bera Educator of the Year in the BSc-MST and MSc-ChemE programmes
This year, Bijoy Bera – after a nomination by TG - was elected as Educator of the Year in the BSc-MST and MSc-ChemE programmes. At the same time he was also nominated by SV-Hooke as Educator of the Year in the Nanobiology programmes. Such a double nomination has never happened before.
Although Bijoy Bera has been with TU Delft for only 4 years now, he has already become a vital teacher in the BSc-MST and MSc-ChemE programmes. Bijoy is described by students and colleagues as an incredibly dedicated, passionate, kind and sweet teacher teacher, who will go many extra miles to lead each individual student to understanding of the material. Bijoy often asks for feedback on the course during his lectures and processes it during the course itself. He tries to adapt and renew all his courses every year. In addition, he always answers questions quickly and is very accessible. If he realizes that a student is stressed, he always tries to reassure them. Also outside of class, and on topics that he doesn’t teach, students seek him out for explanations. This shows how very clear it is to the students that he cares and is approachable. In addition to all of this, Bijoy also supervises many BEP and MEP students and he puts a lot of effort into this. Many students describe him as the best teacher they have ever had.
Students write:
- “Bijoy is always super clear.”
- “Bijoy teaches flawlessly.”
- “Bijoy did amazing, very structured.”
- “Bijoy always makes sure everyone is on the same page as him an completely understands what he is explaining.”
- “He is a really passionate, kind, sweet teacher. And he takes his student's wellbeing to heart.”
- “He is always prepared for the lectures and is always ready to help whenever students need it.”
- “Of all the teachers I have had, some stand out for their enthusiasm, willingness to help, clarity, and understanding of the fact that we are students with many courses. Bijoy Bera stands out for all of these reasons. If the class consensus is that we don't understand something, he is willing to alter his schedule to make sure we understand it first, instead of saying that we should just have understood by ourselves. Most importantly, Bijoy is fair, humble, kind, and fun.”
- “He connects with the students and is accessible.”
With all this, it should be noted here that Bijoy teaches precisely the topics that students find very abstract and hard to grasp, like transport dynamics and process dynamics. So our hats off to his amazing didactical skills.
Beyond developing and teaching his own courses, he also aids other teachers in developing their courses. For example when the Numerical Methods course was set up in a new format, using challenge-based learning, Bijoy was a vital to this development. Bijoy is a core of the TU Delft IDEE Retention team, in which he will co-supervisor a PhD student working on progression and retention of knowledge & skills. Bijoy with his team will explore how to enhance student’s progression and retention, using the bachelor Molecular Science and Technology as his `field lab’ and aims to translate the lessons learned to programs across TU Delft.