Dr. Kai Niebert
Professor for Science and Sustainability Education
Teaching Science at University
UZH
Enrollment is Closed
About This Course
Teaching Science at University is a pragmatic science pedagogy course for early-career university instructors and PhD students. It focuses on the core concepts and teaching skills you need to transform and repackage your scientific expertise into effective, engaging learning experiences for students. We will show you how to communicate science to novices as well as advanced students in science.
Based on up-to-date findings from research into teaching and learning science you will be able to: - implement evidence-based strategies into your own teaching, - use students’ everyday-conceptions for the development of your courses, - prepare analogies and models to teach in your field, - implement problem-based teaching, - set up for experiments and teach the nature of science.
This course enables you to teach abstract science topics to your students and make them become active and successful learners. The course is based on lectures (videos), handouts (knowledge-to practice briefs) which supplement the knowledge taught in the lectures, and assignments to implement the teaching strategies into your own practice.
Requirements
There are no prerequisites for this course. If you already have some teaching experience, then you can complete assignments based on your teaching experience. If you have no teaching experience, please complete assignments based on your experiences as a student and what you would modify in your own future teaching.
Course Staff
Sara Petchey
Assistant and PhD Student, Institute of Education, University of Zurich
Frequently Asked Questions
What web browser should I use?
The Open edX platform works best with current versions of Chrome, Firefox or Safari, or with Internet Explorer version 9 and above.
See our list of supported browsers for the most up-to-date information.
How much time should the course take each week?
Past participants report investing a range from 1 to 4 hours of work per week in the course. Of course, weeks with more familiar content will go more quickly. And topics which feel particularly important and useful to you will need more time. The weekly rhythm is the same: watch 5 to 8 short videos, look at the summary handouts (Y2K Briefs) and check out the links they offer to useful websites, complete an assignment, and peer review two others.