Should we teach in English or German? Or both? But then, which class in which language?

This question is at the center of an on-going debate, and it is a hard question to answer. Here is how the Open Source Research (and Teaching) Group is looking at the situation.

The fundamental assumption is that we (German Universities) want to attract students who are not native German speakers. There are two main reasons: (a) It is a large market (for education) and (b) Germany needs new and fresh blood from abroad. English is the international language and the main common denominator. Spanish never made it there and Chinese is a long way off and might never make it either. German, of course, is a remote also-ran.

There are basically two conflicting forces:

Continue reading English or German? Deutsch oder Englisch?

Today, a colleague confided in me:

“Dirk, if I were a student, I wouldn’t attend your classes. I never liked to speak up and would rather cram for an exam at the end of the semester rather than open my mouth in class.”

Well, that was quite the bummer. However:

We teach to make the most of your time: To achieve the highest possible learning in the shortest amount of time. Your (student) time is precious, and so is ours. For that, we encourage active class participation. To make this clear, parts of your grades depend on that participation.

Look at the following increasing steps of class engagement:

Continue reading Why We Teach The Way We Do