Inspirations for online teaching (internal page)

My start into the semester - this is how I designed the first session:

The first session was used to introduce the topics of the course, divide students into groups they would later on work in on projects and discuss potential scheduling issues.

(Jun.-Prof. Dr. Steffen Eckhard; Alexa Lenz, Politics and Public Administration )

Challenges and Highlights

My biggest challenge this semester was...

Methods

My favourite method of activating/actively engaging students was:

Students appreciated the use of kahoot quizzes to test knowledge on the required readings. The quizzes were developed by a different group of students every week.

(Jun.-Prof. Dr. Steffen Eckhard; Alexa Lenz, Politics and Public Administration)

Communication and Platforms

This is how I communicated with the students:

Students were invited to write e-mails and make an appointment to talk via videochat.

(Jun.-Prof. Dr. Steffen Eckhard; Alexa Lenz, Politics and Public Administration)

ILIAS I have used for:

ILIAS was used to provide materials. Also, students were encouraged to utilize the forum to discuss and organize in their groups when working on projects.

(Jun.-Prof. Dr. Steffen Eckhard; Alexa Lenz, Politics and Public Administration)

Peer-to-Peer Tips

Studentin schreibt in einem Arbeitsbereich der Bibliothek

Starting the semester

How do I get students involved? How can we get to know each other as a group? How can I prepare my students to use new techniques?

Challenges and highlights

Of the many things that we tried out, some worked well, some didn’t work at all, and some could be improved upon.

My greatest challenge this semester was...

Black screen

It was hard for me to give online lectures to “black squares” on my screen, since students turned off their video as well as microphones, and all I could see were a list of names like “Lieschen Müller” or even aliasess like “123” or “a”. This gives the impression that participants are not really present and oral student participation is practically non-existent during online lecturing, a situation which I found to be much more of a challenge than, for example, on-campus lectures. I have the impression that, when everyone else is taking part anonymously, individual students don’t feel encouraged to make a contribution to the lecture.

(Kay Diederichs, biology)

(Prof. Dr. Hans Christian Röhl, Rechtswissenschaften)

Die Studierenden unter Bedingungen der Pandemie mit einer gewaltigen Stoffmenge vertraut zu machen und trotz der online-Lehre ein Gefühl von gemeinsamem Arbeiten entstehen zu lassen.

(Prof. Dr. Albrecht Koschorke, Literatur-, Kunst- und Medienwissenschaften)

Here’s how I addressed it...

I became aware of this problem later in the summer semester and was unable to solve it at the time (at the beginning it was less of a problem because a few students had had their video on during the first online class sessions).

(Kay Diederichs, biology)

(Prof. Dr. Hans Christian Röhl, Rechtswissenschaften)

Die Vorlesung setzte sich aus drei Elementen zusammen: 1) einem ausformulierten Skript, das ca. eine Woche vor dem jeweiligen Termin auf ILIAS zugänglich war; 2) mit Audio-Kommentaren unterlegte Folien, die noch einmal zur Herausstellung der wichtigsten Punkte dienen sollten; und 3) einer etwa einstündigen Diskussion auf Webex zum wöchentlichen Termin, eingeleitet durch eine nochmals verknappte Revue des behandelten Stoffes durch den Dozenten.

(Prof. Dr. Albrecht Koschorke, Literatur-, Kunst- und Medienwissenschaften)

This is what I would do differently next time:

I have decided to speak with my students about my discomfort with anonymity at the beginning of each semester’s lectures and to ask all the students to use their full names and video during the lecture.

(Kay Diederichs, biology)

(Prof. Dr. Hans Christian Röhl, Rechtswissenschaften)

Insgesamt scheinen die Anforderungen etwas zu hoch gewesen zu sein, jedenfalls wurde darüber geklagt. Im ersten Corona-Semester haben sich offenbar auch die anderen Lehrpersonen aufwendige Partizipationsformen einfallen lassen, so dass die Arbeitslast für die Studierenden sehr hoch war.

(Prof. Dr. Albrecht Koschorke, Literatur-, Kunst- und Medienwissenschaften)

Peer-to-peer tips

What I would like to tell my colleagues:

If you face the same discomfort as I do with not being able to get a personal impression of the students attending your courses online, I think it would be helpful to ask students turn on their video at the beginning of online lectures. It seems to me that students could benefit from this as well, since they could actually see each other for a moment instead of having virtually no contact with other students. If you feel the same way, please drop me an email so I know I am not alone with this assessment. It is a pity that the topic of “feeling anonymous in online teaching” so far has not been discussed (not in this survey either). If I missed the discussion, please let me know.

(Kay Diederichs, biology)