The workshop offerings at the Competence Center for University Teaching
Educational Design Essentials
From course planning to examinations, from one's own teaching attitude to student feedback: The Competence Center for University Teaching offers a comprehensive workshop programme to deepen and exchange information on central questions of educational design in university teaching.
Below you will find descriptions of the workshops regularly held at the Competence Center for University Teaching. Please refer to the event calendar for the exact dates.
Teaching with Attitude
With what attitude do you engage in teaching? What expectations, norms and values guide you in what you do? How do you form the relationship with your students and why exactly? Have you ever thought about your privileged and powerful position? These questions and more will be addressed in the three-hour workshop "Teaching with Attitude." Together, we will interactively approach the power relations that shape the university and teaching attitudes, and work out what consequences arise from different attitudes for the design of student learning processes. In doing so, we will also critically question the achievement myth, the meritocratic ideology of self-responsibility for success and failure, and classism at the university - these are often dominant influences on teaching attitudes.
The goal of the workshop is to recognize the processual and relational nature of teaching and learning and to reflect on one's own attitude as a teacher and the consequences of the attitude for student learning processes. Exercises and exchanges with colleagues provide stimuli for processes of insight and reflection and contribute to getting to know new points of view. Finally, insights from the workshop should broaden your professional self-understanding and your professional teaching attitude.
Frequency: once per academic year
Well planned is half taught: Designing courses and course units
A well-structured course or course unit that follows a common thread creates transparency for students and supports them in their learning. However, good planning and clear objectives also help teachers maintain an overview and proceed in a didactically sensible manner.
In this two-part workshop, you will learn what to consider when planning and implementing courses and teaching units, how to proceed systematically, and what information you should communicate to students.
Contents:
- Semester planning (1st session):
- Didactic course planning
- Constructive alignment
- Formulating rough objectives
- Course description
- Assessment concept
- Planning of teaching units (2nd term):
- Formulating detailed objectives
- Ways of structuring a teaching sequence
- Time management
- Work with planning grids
Frequency: once per semester
Creating a personal teaching techniques kit: Designing varied and student-activating teaching units
In university teaching, it is usually clear WHAT we want to teach students. However, there are numerous possibilities as to HOW - i.e. with the help of which techniques - teachers can develop content in courses. It is the choice of teaching techniques that determines how well students can follow the teaching sequence and follow the teaching content. It is worthwhile to have a personal kit with teaching techniques in order to be able to design varied teaching.
In this workshop you will get an overview of proven and interactive teaching techniques for the different phases of a teaching unit and try them out yourself from the participant's perspective. You will learn what to consider when choosing teaching techniques and where to find further methodological suggestions.
Contents:
- Getting to know possibilities for structuring a teaching sequence
- Getting to know and trying out various techniques for the individual phases of a teaching sequence
- Guidelines for the choice of teaching techniques
- Collegial exchange of experience on the use of teaching techniques
Frequency: once per semester
Student Diversity: Meeting Challenges, Demands, and Preventing Discrimination
It is on everyone's lips: the heterogeneity or diversity of students, which teachers should be aware of and encounter. But what exactly is meant by this and to what extent does it play a role in teaching and learning? In this two-part workshop, based on participants' experiences, observations, and interests, we look at the various power relations that structure teaching and learning and contribute to how studying is experienced and how students can engage at the university. Focusing on teaching and learning activities, we will discuss what forms sexism, racism, classism, ableism, and religious bias and prejudice can take and how to prevent possible disadvantage or discrimination as a teacher. Looking at diversity is inevitably linked to questions about student activation and supporting student learning, but we will also keep in mind and discuss the limits of what can be done.
Frequency: once per academic year, online
Feedback and course evaluation
Student feedback and course evaluations generate important feedback for teachers and can serve as a starting point for the structured further development of one's own teaching.
In this interactive workshop you will work out
- why it makes sense to distinguish between feedback and evaluation in teaching (assessment and reflection)
- how the standardized course evaluation at the University of Graz is designed and which possibilities there are to collect student feedback (framework and possibilities)
- which purposes and goals are connected with course evaluations and student feedback - for the teacher, from the university's point of view and for the students (motivation and intention)
- which instrument is suitable for which interest or need and which questions you can ask students (linkage and design possibilities)
- How to deal with student feedback in the right way (interpretation and further development)
Frequency: once per semester
Teaching portfolio workshops
What considerations underlie your teaching, with what attitude do you teach and how does that fit with what you do? How is your teaching designed, how do you obtain feedback, and where do you want to go in teaching? The teaching portfolio is useful for reflecting on these questions, for professional development, and for application processes.
Attend the two workshops offered several times a semester to create your teaching portfolio with good guidance and (peer) support.
Teaching portfolio 1 - Introduction
In the Teaching Portfolio I workshop, an introduction to the forms and functions of the teaching portfolio and its essential components will be given. In addition, information will be provided on the requirements for teaching portfolios created at the University of Graz. Based on the exchange between the workshop participants, first text modules and considerations for the own teaching portfolio will be created with the help of exercises. In concrete terms, you will learn in the workshop
- what a teaching portfolio can do for you as a teacher;
- what a teaching portfolio can look like and which aspects of content and form need to be taken into account;
- what support you can receive in creating your teaching portfolio;
- how you can continue to work on your teaching portfolio.
Frequency: several times a semester