I started teaching as tutorial lecturer for quantitative methods in my 2nd study year. Since 1997, I taught over 85 courses on different topics and in different Diplom, MA and BA levels. Especially topics like quantitative methods need a student friendly approach. It is important to reduce fear and enhance understanding while showing the importance of the content in real life situations. I developed various examples to help students embrace statistics (e.g., how to clean up your closet by using factor analysis, how a bar talk connects to hypotheses). Next to lectures, tutorials and formative / summative assessments, I created new forms of teaching such as PodCats (podcasts with cats as spontaneous guests) and click videos for SPSS. PodCats include a “journalist” and a “guest” and focus on weekly questions that students submitted to the topic. This allows to add and repeat information in a less robotic way. Especially during lockdown/online teaching times, these formats were highly valued by students and all members of the teaching teams.
The lecture videos were appreciated so much that due to the positive students’ evaluation, we are still continuing with 16 10-15 minutes video lectures and 2 campus lectures. This approach allows students to follow the content in their own pace. In addition, this course is re-opened when students write their BA thesis, thus, having lecture videos once more is seen as huge support for quantitative studies in BA thesis. The same approach was chosen for the MA methods course concerning the analyses weeks. In addition to helping students recapping the materials for their theses, I make the course materials also available for new supervisors in order to show them what can be expected from our students (and what cannot).
My teaching qualifications include the BKO, SQE (finished in March 2021) and the German venia legendi (right to teach and promote PhD candidates). My teaching evaluations are very high (see attachment and please keep in mind that statistics is not the most beloved topic). By now, I supervised more than 130 BA theses (> 110 since I started my position at ESHCC), 35 MA theses and 13 Diplom Theses. Out of these theses, 15 resulted in high ranked peer-reviewed journals and 33 in peer-reviewed conference presentations.
I am also an active member of the Examination Board since 2008 (Cologne University, since 2012 ESHCC). This position helps me to understand, examine and improve assessment forms that fit to the teaching goals and to skills that students need to develop during their studies. I became chair of the Examination Board of ESHCC in November 2020. The Covid lockdown and tasks concerning online (non)proctored exams and online assessment in general are a challenge and an opportunity as well. My decisions and working attitude are highly valued by the EB team, lecturers, student advisors and students.