Teaching award winners Friedrich Schiller University Jena 2020
An award was presented for the best course concept (€2,500). In 2020, an additional award was presented in the thematic priority area ‘Teaching in large groups (80 students or more)’ (€2,500).
The panel of experts of the Academy for Teaching Development (ALe) selected two excellent teaching concepts from among the 21 nominations received for the 2020 Teaching Awards:
The award for the best course concept (€2,500) goes to Dr Stefan Fedke (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration) for the specialization module ‘Supply Chain Simulation’.
The panel’s accompanying statement says: The award-winning module represents an outstanding way of successively introducing students to the independent processing of complex problems through the combination of various innovative elements: Alternating between interactively designed classroom lectures and online self-learning phases, students actively engage with the taught content. In a subsequent simulation project, the acquired knowledge is directly applied, thus linking theory and practice.
The differential handling of the heterogeneity of students coming from different study programmes should also be emphasized. Through various accompanying offers, such as optional tutorials, individual support, or additional teaching materials, the heterogeneous prior knowledge and performance levels of the participating students are taken into account in an exemplary manner.
The award in the thematic priority area ‘Teaching in large groups (80 students or more)’ (€2,500) goes to Jun.-Prof. Dr David Löwenstein (Faculty of Arts, Institute of Philosophy) for the module ‘Logik und Argumentationslehre’.
Here, the panel justifies its decision as follows: The module, which consists of a lecture and an exercise, demonstrates in an outstanding way that even in large courses it is possible to activate learning in a relevant way throughout the course. This is achieved on the one hand through the targeted and didactically balanced use of suitable teaching methods, such as the think-pair-share or audience response method. Above all, however, the didactic concept of the course, which is reflected in a flexible alternation between input and practice phases, should be emphasised: Knowledge transfer, accompanied application of the imparted knowledge through practice units in small groups during the classroom sessions as well as the independent application of the acquired knowledge in self-learning phases with subsequent feedback alternate. The challenge of achieving an in-depth examination of presented content even in the course of a large course is thus achieved through exemplary flexibility in terms of content and time within the course concept. This creates a scenario for the students that leads to continuous learning and thus contributes to sustainable learning success.
Both Teaching Awards were presented in a ceremony during this year’s digital DIES LEGENDI – Teaching Day on 24 November 2020.