New Semester – new Seminars

The new semester has already started last week. My seminars at the University of Tübingen will start next week:

There will be three graduat seminars and one undergraduat seminar with the following titles and starting dates:

• “Russia in transition” (Course A) is starting Monday, 21st April at 12:00. Main topics are new developments in the political system of Russia. They will be analyzed from different transition theorie’ point of view, with a focus on types of political systems.
• “Russia in transition” (Course B) is starting Monday, 21st April at 16:00.
• “Empirical Research Methods in Political Science” will start Tuesday, 22nd April at 12:00. Topics are quantitative and qualitative Methods of research as written and oral interviews, construction of questionnaires, observation, etc.
• “Research and Teaching Project 2″ is an undergraduate seminar for 5/6 th semester. In this second part of the Seminar, students will present first Ideas and results of research for their B.A.-Thesis, will receive individual coaching in presentational skills (including video analysis), and will learn about applications and assessment.

Das zersägte Klassenzimmer – the Jigsaw-Classroom

A new article of mine is available online: “Das zersägte Klassenzimmer – Ein Gruppenpuzzle-Experiment in Zeiten der Ökonomisierung von Bildungsprozessen”, which is published in Tübinger Beiträge zur Hochschuldidaktik 4,1

In a first step article summarizes the development, usage and evaluation of the Jigsaw-Method. Developed in the 1970ies by Elliot Aronson et al to desegregate classrooms in the US in the aftermath of the Brown vs. Board of Education Case in 1954, this interdependent teamwork-method has become an oftenly and sucessfully used method in education on all levels. In times of economization of education, it can be used 1) to effectively teach the so called soft skills as teamwork and so on; 2) to motivate students to study while researching; 3) to bring together heterogeneous and groups of students from different cultural backgrounds.

The second part of the article describes and evaluates an experimental seminar in political science, I held at the University of Tübingen twice, using the jigsaw method. Quantitative and qualitative Evaluation of the first seminar showed some weaknesses of the seminar, I tried to expunge in the second seminar. For example there, i held two more plenary sessions in the middle of the semester to secure results of group work. Both, students presentations/tests and feedbacks showed a significant increase in quality that seems to be linked with the readjustment of the seminar according to the first evaluation.