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Anyone who starts teaching university courses will have spent thousands of hours as a student. This experience will shape their actions as a teacher, and that’s fine; we all draw upon our personal experience and preferences while teaching. However, in order to teach well – to structure courses fairly and efficiently, to support all the various types of students we may encounter, to prevent and handle difficult situations – we benefit from adding some professional skills and knowledge to that personal experience.
This course is designed to help you put your teaching on a more professional footing. You will learn the basics of teaching at university, gaining both evidence-based theoretical knowledge and practical tools that you can apply to any course you teach in the future. You will not only learn how to plan a course and present information, but also how to actually engage and motivate students, help them retain information, build good relationships with students, and simultaneously protect your own boundaries as an instructor.
The variant of "Fit for Teaching" offered at the University of Heidelberg consists of five units on the topics of learning psychology, planning an entire course, planning individual lessons, instructors’ roles and dealing with difficult situations, and professionalization in university teaching. This is a blended learning course, meaning that it consists of live class sessions (both virtual and face-to-face) and self-study phases between classes. The self-study phases contain tasks that will guide you through reflecting upon your role as an instructor, and applying ideas to your own teaching. You can work through these tasks at your own pace and with your own focus. The class sessions, on the other hand, will be highly interactive and offer opportunities to discuss ideas with your peers and the course instructor.
The course is part of module “Teaching and Learning I” of the Baden-Württemberg certificate in Higher Education and Staff Development. For those, who are interested in completing the whole module I, participants will additionally have to partake in the following (dates will be agreed upon in the course):
- Group consultations on specific teaching issues or questions
- Planning Seminar/lecture designs and classroom observation
- Written self-evaluation report on the individual learning process
You will receive a necessary information during the workshop.