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Students on a Master's degree programme often have different basic knowledge, as they have completed their Bachelor's degree at different universities. Students on a Master's degree programme may even have different Bachelor's degrees.
The teaching of basic knowledge in the Master's programme is adapted to the students' level of knowledge. Thanks to the modular course structure, the structure and content of the course can be flexibly adapted to the students' knowledge requirements.
The Master's programme serves to deepen content. However, this is challenging due to the often heterogeneous prior knowledge of the students. For example, students may not have heard of a particular subject area at all, while other students on the same Master's programme have already attended several courses in this area during their Bachelor's degree. If the basics are missing, it is generally not possible to specialise in the subject.
Procedure
In this case, a foundation course is offered to bring students up to a standardised basic level. The content of this course is not specified ex ante, apart from an introductory section. The lecturer prepares modules on basic topics in his or her specialisation. An individual module comprises a self-contained subject area and has its own structure and bibliography. Only a fraction of the available semester hours per week or the workload of the entire basic course is used to teach a single module. All modules together are generally too extensive for the basic course.
In the first session, students are shown the module titles. The task of the students is to work in small groups of 3 to 4 people to identify the module topics with keywords and to draw up a list of preferences for the module topics.
In the next step, the groups discuss the preference lists they have created and finalise the keywords. The result of this process is a consensus for the preference list. The preference list represents the rough outline of the lecture with the students' expectations for the individual outline points. During the discussion, students and lecturers already recognise what knowledge is available and where there are gaps.
Once the preference list for the modules has been finalised, the lecturer presents the content of the individual modules according to their understanding (module structure). The students then have the opportunity to adjust their decision once again.
Learning success
Initial experience with this approach has shown the following advantages
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eTeach Network Thuringia
Bauhaus University Weimar
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99423 Weimar
The eTeach Network Thuringia is funded by the Thuringian Ministry of Economics, Science and Digital Society
