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Digitalisation of teaching at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities

  • During in-person events, students can – in addition to their own active participation – follow the interaction between fellow students and teaching staff and thereby learn without explicitly participating. This less obvious interaction between students can be emulated in a virtual space by actively encouraging interaction between students. For example, students can correct each other’s texts, which in turn also intensifies consideration of the material, strengthens interaction and makes things easier for the instructor.
  • In order to create a specific space for teaching like a classroom/lecture theatre in the case of in-person teaching, we recommend setting up a virtual course room via ILIAS or moodle. This enables you to structure all information, tasks, etc. clearly and make them available to students. Students can also gain an impression of their fellow students via the user profiles. The advantages of such a room are that students are usually already familiar with them and that you, as the instructor, can act within an officially secure space. You can find guides on the various options available in ILIAS in the digital teaching and learning directory in the system (German only). Please post any concrete questions in the e-learning consultation session in Rocket.Chat. This documentation (German only) provides information on the options available in moodle.
  • If you would prefer to refrain from using these options, you can share folders and files with your students via PhilCloud or sciebo either via a link or by sharing the folder by manually entering the students. You can use both cloud solutions via the web interface or the corresponding desktop installation; content is synchronised automatically.
  • You can of course also create a mail distribution list and send students new learning materials each week. It is however essential to ensure that you observe permitted upload volumes and use clear and meaningful mail subject lines, file names, etc. Not all of the following ideas can be realised via a mail distribution list.
  • The most important thing with all these variants is to ensure maximum clarity. We recommend that you choose one of the three options and then keep to it as far as possible. Please bear in mind that students take numerous courses, which may involve very different ways of working. It is therefore also helpful to give your students a written overview at the start of the course that clearly states what is expected of them when and where, how and by when it is expected.
  • You can find a course description form template (German only) here. The following checklist (German only) is provided to help you formulate individual tasks. It is important to ensure that all materials are accessible as far as possible.
  • You can find further concrete information on accessibility on the “Diversity Portal” page and under the points “Agree rules for collaboration” and “Give and receive feedback” below. If students with vision or hearing impairments are participating in your class, the services of a captioner may prove helpful. If you and/or students have questions about how to organise and realise accessible courses, you can contact the team from the Counselling Centre for Students with Disabilities or Chronic Illnesses.
  • You can find more information on realising diversity-sensitive teaching in the handout "living diversity, shaping the future" published by the Diversity Coordination Office (German only).
  • To keep students motivated, it is important to provide regular feedback – both general and personal, and on both learning progress and learning behaviour.

Which teaching format would you like to digitalise?

For all types of teaching events, we recommend that you:

  • Ensure the course concept is transparent
  • Agree rules for collaboration
  • Encourage students to reflect on their own learning progress and provide feedback
  • Obtain feedback from students

Lectures usually focus on communicating specialist knowledge and encouraging students to actively consider it.

Read more below under e.g. the following teaching/learning activities:

  • Provide input
  • Answers questions relating to understanding
  • Review understanding 
  • Initiate collaboration between students

Seminars usually focus on developing topics together and discursive verbal/written exchange.

Read more below under e.g. the following teaching/learning activities:

  • Determine prior knowledge
  • Discuss texts
  • Debate with students
  • Enable students to generate knowledge
  • Enable students to give presentations

Tutorials usually focus on the more detailed application of specialist knowledge.

Read more below under e.g. the following teaching/learning activities:

  • Determine prior knowledge
  • Initiate collaboration between students
  • Support student writing processes
  • Enable students to give presentations 
  • Set learning taks (German only)

Which teaching/learning activities would you like to digitalise?

  • Provide an overviwe document (German only) that sets out what is expected of students and when, how they should complete the work, where they should upload/send their results and which deadlines they must observe. Formulate clear learning outcomes (German only) and ensure they are transparent so it is evident where the planned learning activities should lead the students. You can find a video tutorial on the topic of elearning outcomes in the HHU Media Centre (German only).
  • You can also create a brief introductory video/audio recording to increase the personal connection with your students and thus also the probability of greater commitment on their part.


Technical realisation

  • Firstly, you should clearly communicate and discuss which rules everyone should and must observe, and what expectations students have – also of each other – with regard to collaboration. This point appears even more important than usual, as personal reprimands are not possible in the event of violation. The consequences of e.g. missing a deadline, lack of willingness to work together, etc. must be made clear to everyone. Involving students increases the likelihood that they will be committed.
  • If you record the rules for collaboration in a forum, they are set out clearly and permanently for all students and any waiting-list candidates to view. Students can then also ask general questions about the class here. Ask students to activate notifications to ensure they stay up-to-date.
  • Ensure that any questions to students are formulated clearly and in a topic-specific way as far as possible. Address the concrete situation. Formulations such as the following may be helpful here: “If you have problems with the course material due to health issues/impairments or technical difficulties, please contact me (by e-mail). We will find alternative solutions.” Students with health issues/impairments usually know best what aids they need.

Technical realisation

  • Collate prior knowledge e.g. via a collaborative mind map or document. 
  • Use a learning portfolio in which students can note their prior knowledge in various formats, either as bullet points or in detail. In general, students can gather the required information, tasks, audio and video recordings, presentations, etc. in a learning portfolio and reflect on the contexts in which they are situated in the learning environment.


Technical realisation

  • Set of slides with brief accompanying audio commentaries.
  • Set of slides or script with concrete starting points for debate to be discussed in a forum or chat in a clearly defined time window.
  • Set of slides or script with clear tasks to be submitted by students before the following week.
  • Set of slides or script on which you offer a weekly chat session for questions. You can ask students to submit questions in advance and then form homogeneous small groups or hold brief video conferences at specific times where necessary. Short explanatory videos are also an option in cases where multiple questions are asked about specific aspects. 
  • Set of slides or script with an integrated quiz to ensure students automatically gain feedback on their answers.
  • Provision of reading material with a corresponding essay task where students correct the essays of others.


Technical realisation

  • Set up a chat/consultation session via video conference for questions. 
  • Gather questions, which students should then try to explain to each other.


Technical realisation

 

  • Lecturer prepares quiz questions. 
  • Students prepare quiz questions (the quality of the questions also provides an insight into how deeply they have understood the topic).


Technical realisation

  • Prepare key questions on texts and ask students to answer them (see methodology toolbox).
  • Ask students to formulate questions to establish understanding and for discussion after reading the texts.
  • Ask students to chat about these questions in small groups.
  • Ask students to review the other chats and write individual synopses (what was at the core of these discussions?) and formulate follow-up questions.
  • Ask students to highlight core statements and similar, and make them available for mutual consideration and critical review.
  • Ask students to prepare brief summaries and correct the work of others.


Technical realisation

  • Send out a provocative or contentious theory on which students should submit a source-based response or document, or which they should prepare for a chat.
  • Gather arguments for/against on a contentious issue (also possible in teams).
  • Ask students to prepare brief summaries on specific positions/theories/etc.
  • Ask students to develop brief argument statements (also in teams) and ask other students to evaluate them.


Technical realisation

  • Develop rules for virtual collaboration with students.
  • Set up forums or chats. 
  • Divide students into teams (as students may not know each other, more support may be needed than usual when it comes to this). You can ask students to complete short profile forms to enable them to get to know each other better.


Technical realisation

  • At defined points in time during the semester, students should (e.g.) provide feedback on what they can now do better than in the past.
  • Prepare learning curves: In parallel with the course, students should note for themselves in graphic form when they feel they have learned a lot or important information and when less so.
  • Support student learning strategies, provide information on learning strategies and techniques.


Technical realisation

  • Assign research tasks on specific topics.
  • Ask students to create glossaries, dictionary entries, wikis, etc.


Technical realisation

  • Ask students to produce short (!) input videos, also to improve digital media creation expertise.
  • Discuss videos together afterwards.
  • Mutual rating of videos on the basis of a catalogue of criteria.


Technical realisation

  • Formulate the written task as precisely as possible and ideally break it down into individual working steps. This gives students a better understanding of what is expected of them and how to manage their work better.
  • Ask students to prepare and submit essays for correction and evaluation by others (also possible on an anonymous basis, e.g. students may give themselves aliases and name their files accordingly).
  • You can also ask students to prepare their text via a collaborative document. Common etherpad solutions usually include a function that enables you to display the editing steps over time, meaning that you can see how your students have written texts, which revision steps they have undertaken, etc. This enables you to provide detailed feedback about the writing process of students.
  • You can find information on providing feedback on texts e.g. here (German only).


Technical realisation

  • To offer exercises on pronunciation and listening comprehension, you can ask students to prepare written dialogues in a first step and then record them in individual work sessions. 
  • You can record sentences or longer text passages yourself and ask students to record their responses in individual sentences or anticipated dialogues. 
  • You could also record different variants of the sentences and ask students to decide which are better with regard to different aspects. Students can also record their own variants and explain the differences between them.
  • If you decide to use short video conferences in exceptional cases, please note that you should keep to small groups of max. 10 students and plan in extra time to account for likely technical difficulties.


Technical realisation

  • E.g. conduct a short survey after topic blocks: What facilitates learning in the course? What makes learning more difficult? What improvement suggestions do you have?
  • Set up a forum explicitly for the experiences of students during the course. This enables content/didactic aspects, challenges and experiences with regard to technical realisation to be addressed.
  • Use the modified version of the faculty-wide online class evaluation and add questions that are appropriate to your specific situation. More detailed information on this will be sent to all teaching staff by e-mail at the start of the lecture period.
  • Ensure that any questions to students are formulated clearly and in a topic-specific way as far as possible. Address the concrete situation. Formulations such as the following may be helpful here: “If you have problems with the course material due to health issues/impairments or technical difficulties, please contact me (by e-mail). We will find alternative solutions.” Students with health issues/impairments usually know best what aids they need.
  • You can find tips on giving and receiving constructive feedback in the guide on how to give and receive feedback (German only).
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