Hinke van der Werf chosen as Hanze Teacher of the Year

Hinke van der Werf has been chosen as Hanze Teacher of the Year. This was announced by Executive Board member Annemarie Hannink during the New Year's breakfast at the Wiebenga location.

Text: Nathalie Meeuwsen
Photo: Rianne Hamers

Van der Werf won the title because of the unique way in which she manages to connect education, practice and research, her activating didactics and her vision and innovative capacity. Later this year she will compete for the national title.

Versatile within the Nursing programme

"A colleague described me as a bit of a Hanze nomad", she says. This is because Van der Werf is involved in so many issues with social impact, from advocacy for informal caregivers and inclusion issues to green care. Within the nursing, she is involved in research supervision at the Nurse Specialist master and she is an internship supervisor at the Martini Hospital for students of the bachelor's degree in nursing. She also lectures in de-escalating techniques, teaching students how to deal with aggression and sexual harassment. As coordinator of the second year, she has made sustainability in healthcare part of the programme. She is also involved in lessons of the Alfa college for refugees who are preparing for a study in higher professional education or at university and Hanze's own Grotius programme for students with a refugee background.

Approach to education

Van der Werf: "Students should not only know what they are doing, but also why this matters to society."  As a lecturer, she therefore often discusses the news at the beginning of the lesson or links current events to the care or welfare that students may encounter in their professional lives. This way they learn to see the bigger picture. If possible, she combines social interest with fun speakers or assignments. For example, some of her students were able to practice motivational interviewing on a former deputy of the province of Groningen who wanted to quit smoking. Van der Werf linked students from the Grotius programme to speech therapy students so that they could practise their Dutch, and to occupational therapy students who taught them about empathy.  

Structured and flexible

What does the combination of structured and flexible didactics entail? Van der Werf likes assignments and agreements to be clear: "I'm not someone who uses a lot of working methods so that it's entertaining enough. Students want to know where a lesson is going. A deadline is a deadline, unless a student is not doing well, then adjustments are possible, of course." She always tries to find out why, for example, a student has not prepared a presentation properly. Is it lack of motivation or is there another reason? Attitude and behaviour are important to Van der Werf. Students must be aware that they are going to work with a very vulnerable population. She makes it possible for students to discuss difficult themes so that they feel seen, moved and challenged.

Vision of the future

Van der Werf hopes that there will be even more intensive cooperation both within and outside the Hanze in the coming years, also between study programmes. Programmes within the clusters are quite close to one another in terms of content. But Nursing will soon be working together with Engineering. "I think that's fantastic," she says, "because we can learn so much from each other!" Van Werf feels this is also the way to tackle the problems of the future, such as climate change, shortages in healthcare and inequality in society. More collaborations between different disciplines within the Hanze are needed.