Good teaching
Good teaching is not an accident, but the result of careful planning. This page is intended to support you in designing good teaching.
The "Code of Good Online Teaching" describes characteristics and aspects of good teaching. Due to its scope, it can hardly be expected that a single course covers all aspects completely. However, the code is intended to outline an ideal and provide you with impulses for meaningful further developments of your courses. Although the code refers specifically to online teaching, many aspects are also transferable to face-to-face courses.
The code is supplemented by good practice examples from various events at the HKA. These deliberately do not describe entire courses but individual didactic elements that you can incorporate and adapt in your courses.
Code for good online teaching
As a presence university, Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences stands for a contemporary teaching and education concept, of which online teaching is a natural part. The use of online teaching is not an end in itself, but is always guided by didactic considerations and questions. Online teaching goes hand in hand with an expansion of didactic possibilities and opens up new teaching and learning scenarios. It enables students to be more flexible in terms of time and space and contributes to the internationalization of studies and teaching.
Good online teaching takes individuality and diversity into account
Students differ in their individual learning approaches, learning speeds and learning styles, as well as in their prior knowledge and other study prerequisites. By choosing suitable methods and tools, online teaching can and should do particular justice to this heterogeneity among students. It also takes into account the technical and temporal conditions under which students learn.
Online teaching requires an increased degree of self-organization and independence from the students. The teachers support them in this by providing the framework within which the students are to take responsibility for their independent learning. They accompany and support the students continuously in all phases of an online course - also by providing regular feedback on their learning status and working methods.
Just as in face-to-face teaching, Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences values the diversity of individual teaching styles in online teaching, which are ideally characterized by the authenticity, commitment, and enthusiasm of the instructors.
Good online events follow didactic design principles
Good online teaching is designed to be competency-oriented, just like good face-to-face teaching. The teaching formats used and the methods used for practicing, applying, and testing are coordinated with each other and with the content and learning objectives.
Decisions on which components of a course are offered as online teaching, which parts of an online course are offered synchronously or asynchronously, and how the respective elements are interlinked are made in a didactically sound manner. Likewise, organizational and economic framework conditions must be taken into account.
Good online teaching uses clear communication and encourages interaction
The particular challenges of online communication are met through conciseness and unambiguity in communication. It is supported by clarifying expectations and wishes. In doing so, the students' habits in dealing with digital media are taken into account.
Good online teaching promotes interaction between teachers and students as well as among students. In addition, the diverse opportunities for online cooperation in team and project work can be used.
Good online teaching activates students and promotes digital skills
In good online teaching, teachers encourage students to actively engage with the learning content by choosing appropriate teaching methods and suitable tools, taking into account the special opportunities offered by online teaching.
Teachers support students in acquiring subject-specific and interdisciplinary competencies for the digitized professional world - both in dealing with digital technologies for future professional activity and in using digital media for self-organized lifelong learning. The productive, creative, but also critical use of digital media is promoted and exemplified.
Good Practice Examples
Here you will find good practice examples that describe the use of digital tools and methods in teaching at the HKA. You are cordially invited to apply these examples to your events or to use them as inspiration for your own ideas. Each example is accompanied by the contact details of the responsible lecturer(s), who will be happy to help you with any questions you may have.