Lunch in the digital space

Peer exchange with insights on digitally supported teaching. On October 14, 2022, the new “HSZG Digital Teaching Exchange” format took place for the first time. Seventeen participants from various organizational units and faculties accepted the invitation from the Vice President for Education and International Affairs as part of the D2C2 collaborative project and the Centre for eLearning (zfe), and engaged in a collegial exchange of experiences, ideas, and concerns regarding digital teaching. This format is part of the Action Plan for the Digitalization of Studies and Teaching, which stems from the peer-to-peer strategy consultation conducted as part of the University for Future (U4F) process.

After a brief introduction of the organizing team and the event concept, the faculty members were asked to share their experiences—first through a survey, then in a discussion. Here, the faculty emphasized, on the one hand, the additional effort required by the use of digital tools and methods in teaching, and on the other hand, the advantages that come with using them. The participants agreed that they had all been “thrown” into digital teaching due to the pandemic and that, not least for this reason, collegial exchange is important and conducive to the further development of digital teaching competence.

The first input was given by the deputy head of the zfe, deputy professor Dr. Steffi Heidig, on the topic of "Digital teaching formats: blended learning vs. hybrid teaching", answering the frequently asked question of what digital teaching actually is. The concluding words of one lecturer: "Practice composure! Teachers' demands on themselves are often an obstacle on the way to a good digital class / course."

The exchange format has now taken place five times. Input has been provided on topics such as the development of digital tasks in thermodynamics, the design of digital examinations, the concept of microteaching and didactic challenges in digitalized laboratories. The short, ten-minute discussion prompts came both from lecturers at the HSZG and from the joint project D2C2, which deals with the subject-specific implementation of digitalization in university teaching. The lecturers then discussed the possibilities and limitations of using digital tools in teaching as well as data protection issues and exchanged experiences with each other.