published: February 9, 2011

Enhance your teaching - put your research on display!

By Anett Hofmann and Stefan Ungricht

E-learning offers interactive multimedia teaching and learning material anywhere, anytime. The objective of our projects is to showcase the current research of the SPSW scientists in the two subject areas Sustainable Agriculture and Biodiversity Research.

We will search for ways to integrate the new e-learning courses in the MSc and PhD curricula of the eight participating institutions. The courses are intended to be used as a whole (e.g., in blended-learning settings) or as stand-alone modules (single course chapters) to supplement on-going teaching activities. The course content will be both teaching material (at MSc and PhD level) and an advertisement for a particular research area. Students can thus become familiar with the specialized knowledge of the research area they want to study in their MSc or PhD thesis.

Why is it important?

Sustainable agriculture is an important research field, because food security has to be achieved for an ever-growing population under the constraints of increasingly scarce natural resources. Biodiversity research is crucial, since we depend directly (e.g., in the case of food) and indirectly (e.g., in the case of ecosystem services) on the diversity of life.

These two broad subject areas cover the research questions of many SPSW scientists and are thus well suited as a teaching focus. The SPSW board is convinced that the e-learning courses will complement and enhance the already existing courses. Therefore, SPSW is funding our positions as e-learning specialists starting January 2011 through December 2012.

Who do we address?

We are looking for SPSW scientists with ideas for new teaching material that has a close link to their own research. You can contribute your ideas, and we will help you to achieve your goals by producing interactive, multimedia teaching material with a particular focus on visual elements such as interactive figures, video sequences and quizzes with feedback. Creating new teaching material will probably never be easier!.