Infopoint University Teaching 2022: Basic Events

Following the successful conclusion of the first “Infopoint Hochschullehre” series of events on the topic of digital examinations, the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung (HFD) and the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre (StIL) continued this series from spring to December 2022. This year, fundamental events focused on various disciplines. Here you can find recordings of the workshops.

Why foundation courses? These are often experienced as challenging from the perspective of both instructors and students (see Student Success Handbook). In joint discussion, we address faculty questions including:

  • How can one help to ensure that the skills and knowledge acquired in the basic studies (in one’s own subject) are still present in the third semester?
  • How can faculty and student satisfaction/motivation be increased?
  • Which innovative formats and methods are suitable for promoting students’ subject-related ways of thinking and working?

Experts from various disciplines will present their tried and tested teaching concepts and report on their experiences:

  • Fit of the presented approaches for the own context
  • Continuous consideration of the student perspective
  • Accompaniment and supervision of students
  • Design of the self-study
  • Initiation and support of sustainable learning of the students
  • Establishment of social learning/peer learning
  • Improving the framework conditions for successful implementation
  • Introduction of digital audits

All other events take place online via Zoom. They each have different subjects/subject areas as their theme in a monthly rotation. There are approximately 40 seats available per workshop.

The events are divided into two parts: There will be a three-hour synchronous workshop part and a shorter asynchronous preparation part. For this purpose, the presentation of the expert is made available to the participants in advance.

Community-building is important to us: around the event series, you can network with colleagues in your field via Mattermost and exchange ideas beyond the events.

Information about the workshops of the first part can be found here.

Overview of the workshops (2nd part)

05.09.2022 | 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Basic courses in profession-oriented study programs using the example of teacher education | Prof. Dr. Mandy Schiefner-Rohs (TU Kaiserslautern)

Profession-oriented courses of study are characterized on the one hand by the fact that they are geared towards a clear professional goal and on the other hand by the fact that they are also subject to state influences in their curricular design. The goal of the study in the sense of a concrete profession is thus more or less clearly in sight. Foundational courses or the introductory phase of studies then aim at academic socialization with simultaneous vocational training. Using the example of teacher training, we will jointly explore how this balancing act can be achieved and what forms of basic courses can be designed so that students can both critically and reflexively engage with their future career perspectives and gain their first experience of science. Based on two teaching concepts, we will jointly discuss how these can be transferred to the digital space on the one hand and to other profession-oriented courses of study on the other. The workshop is primarily intended to provide ideas for thinking about the introductory phase of studies and thus foundation courses with a view to university socialization.

05.10.2022 | 9:30 – 12:30 | Testing – Teaching – Learning in the Basic Studies of the Didactics of German | Prof. Dr. Matthias Ballod (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)

In the course of their studies, student teachers have to change their role from learner to teacher and, in order to do so, they also have to learn how to examine, correct and give qualified feedback to others. From the first semester on, this shift is experienced in all introductory seminars. Conceiving test design and developing questions is integral to dovetailing competency-based teaching and learning. The basic knowledge is not only taught successively, but is part of a self-learning process and self-testing. The seminar concept opens the double-sided reference to specialized knowledge and own competence, in own learning/learning as well as self-testing/checking. Accordingly, it will be shown how a meaningful experience works in feedback with seminar design, subject placement and peer feedback, appropriate linking of face-to-face phases and online (self) learning as well as the interplay of innovative success controls in teaching-learning scenarios of school and university. Experiences from more than 20 years of experimenting with this form of action orientation will be presented and discussed.

Here you can download the presentation as PDF.

Part 1

Part 2

11.10.2022 | 14:00 – 17:00 | Inspiring Students for Social Sciences – Introduction to Empirical Methods | Prof. Dr. Kai-Uwe Schnapp (University of Hamburg)

Getting to know the methods of empirical work plays a central role in the “becoming” of social scientists. At the same time, dealing with methods – from the philosophy of science to data collection methods to statistics – is often not one of many students’ favorite exercises. A key question, therefore, is how to motivate students to engage with empirical methods. We will talk about content, teaching methods, and the personality of the teacher as motivational factors that influence the socialization performance of introductory courses.

09.12.2022 | 09:30 – 12:30 | Digital Training of Legal Methodological Competencies – Needs, Formats, Tools, Conditions for Success | PD Dr. Martin Zwickel (FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg)

How can students of law programs be given targeted training in legal work/methodological skills (e.g. writing legal exams, methodology of scientific work, dealing with the digitalized legal working world of tomorrow)? The aim of the workshop is to discuss the need for digital training of methodological competencies and then, based on the presentation of concrete examples, to work out conceivable formats, tools and conditions for success of digital legal competency training for the introductory phase of studies. Individual elements of this competence training should be usable for law teachers in their own courses.

New date: 13.12.2022 | 10:00 – 13:00 | Curriculum Development: Medicine in the Digital Age | Prof. Dr. Sebastian Kuhn (University of Marburg)

Digitization in medicine is a fundamental process of change, the impact of which on the future job profile of physicians cannot yet be fully assessed. In order to meet the challenges of the future, medical students and physicians must understand the current fundamental process of change and acquire new competencies. They must be able to classify new digital treatment concepts, learn practical skills, and reflect on their attitude toward digital medicine. The aim is to apply the developments that make sense for patients in practice, to recognize undesirable developments and to avoid them.

The goal of the workshop is to reflect on the processes necessary to create curricula for the digital transformation of medicine. Here we would like to address three aspects that help us to be effective. These are:

  • New curricular content and competencies
  • Innovative teaching/learning formats in face-to-face and digitally-supported lessons
  • Novel composition and work of teachers and students

Here you can find the slides of the workshop.