Good practice examples

To implement this, breakout rooms in the conferencing tool were used. Live group work took place weekly throughout the semester starting in the second session, following a common synchronous event section in plenary during the second half of class time. Students were divided by the instructor into small groups of three each, with attention paid to gender and course mix. The groups used written work instructions (simulation sheets) already anchored in the script that guided them throughout the project work. Students were sent by the instructor in their groups to breakout rooms, which she, as coach, attended in an advisory capacity, either in turn or on call. At the end of the session, everyone reconvened in plenary and reported on their progress. Based on the experience that the ability to concentrate is exhausted more quickly during digital learning, a deliberate focus was placed on a sensible alternation of interaction opportunities (plenary - small groups - plenary) in order to motivate the participants to keep at it and to actively participate.

The direct feedback from the students to the teacher was very positive, the following points can be noted:
pos.: Self-directed, lively exchange of the learners in the small groups
pos.: The opportunity for active participation was greatly appreciated by the learners
pos.: The protected online spaces for the small groups also encouraged active participation by quieter individuals
pos.: Students used their digital literacies to pragmatically share content and communicate through more digital channels
pos.: All students stuck with it, there was no attrition, and learning objectives were met
neg.: Self-management and increased flexibility in online setting was partly perceived as burdensome and disadvantageous

Next time, the instructor would like to give students more freedom to work on tasks independently between sessions, and attempts should be made to create a framework for independent work and to control it less

Stefanie Obergfell
Summer Semester 2020 
FSEC1B Business English
Faculty IFS
20 participants

The teacher decided to reduce the abundance of information that is normally conveyed by her in the lecture in the presence lecture and instead use short teaching videos as impulses. 15 - 25 min short instructional videos (asynchronous) were set as impulses and supplemented by a weekly live meeting (synchronous). In the impulse videos, content was compressed so that a single aspect could be presented and complimented by pre-calculating an exercise task. If necessary for learning progress, this happened in several videos per week, if necessary. In the live meetings, organizational and technical questions were clarified and a practice task, including saving the results on a tablet, was dealt with by hand. The solution to the task was developed jointly and the transcript was subsequently uploaded.

The direct feedback from the students to the teacher was very positive, the following points can be noted:
pos.: The videos can be re-watched at any time
pos.: The derivation and calculation paths of the tasks could be rewatched at any time
pos.: Lower participant attrition than in the face-to-face lecture
pos.: Good sense of community in live meetings despite physical distance
neg.: Self-management and increased flexibility in online setting was partially perceived as burdensome and detrimental

Concerns in such an online teaching setting are mainly about the physical distance to the students, therefore it is especially important to be present online as well and not to be invisible to the students and their concerns. In addition to technical skills, speaking for the camera into an empty room required some practice. Good planning is also required for each video to determine content, but also the language spoken, in advance.

Prof. Dr. Stefanie Regier
Summer semester 2020 
Finanzwirtschhaft (2 SWS)
Faculty IWI
Between 60 - 100 participants

The online whiteboard Miro allowed anonymous feedback on a given question to be collaboratively and easily gathered on an endless canvas in real time . The browser-based tool enabled visual collaboration, was intuitive to use, and was free to use with limited features. Working with it was similar to working with a physical whiteboard or bulletin board. To use it efficiently, a collaboration question and a suitable structure for feedback had to be designed in advance. The fields provided for this ("I like", "I have concerns", "Ideas/suggestions") were locked so that they could not be moved or changed by the participants. Participants were then invited with a link and given all rights to read and edit. They were then given editing time to address the question independently, without moderation by the instructor.

pos.: The use of the shared online whiteboard worked well. This was shown by the high number of feedback as well as the quality of the noted points, because among them were quite critical topics, such as fears of the students.
pos.: The shared online whiteboard could adequately replace a pinboard moderation or the like in the room or even represented an improvement, because in the large group all could note their comments in parallel, so that the interaction density was very high.
pos.: Students act unbiased, which was an advantage especially for quieter or more reserved participants.
neg.: The Lerhperson does not see how many people participated, moreover, could easily cause unrest in the group. It is therefore absolutely necessary to create a framework for the tool and also to moderate the use of the tool by the participants.

Overall, it is important for the instructor to talk about agile working not only as part of the content of the course, but also to signal a certain agility to the students and to allow co-design from the group - on the one hand in terms of content, but also in the framework conditions of the courses. To this end, it is essential not to view changes with suspicion, but to respond to them flexibly and adaptively.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Peter Schmidt
Summer Semester 2020 
Social Collaboration & Knowledge Management
Faculty IWI
40-50 Participants