Tips for teaching staff

Make sure to communicate in an appreciative manner at eye level, which adapts to the knowledge of your students.  Pay attention to the technical terms you use and what you assume as given prior knowledge. Avoid formulations such as "As we all know...", as often not all of your students are familiar with this knowledge (yet).

Mistakes are part of the learning process and should be considered a learning opportunity, not a setback. If you adopt this attitude in your courses, not only will students with non-academic backgrounds benefit, but so will all of your students. Moreover, by doing so, you actively ensure an anxiety-free learning atmosphere.

Confusion is part of the learning process and is part of the everyday process of imparting knowledge.  Therefore, you should encourage students to ask questions if something is unclear to them. Especially students with a non-academic background often shy away from asking questions in courses in order not to stand out from the crowd as 'less intelligent'. For this reason, answers such as "That's trivial!" or "But you should already know that" should be avoided. These are neither conducive to learning nor do they contribute to the well-being of your students.

Transparency is of great importance in day-to-day teaching and learning, especially with regard to examination-related matters. At the beginning of your course or at the beginning of the semester, you should provide answers to questions such as: "Is attendance at office hours compulsory or optional?", "Which theories or contents do all students need to be familiar with at the end of the semester/study program?" or "What criteria are used to assess examination results?" In addition, refer to existing materials, e.g. the guidelines for scientific work of your institute, and indicate where these can be found and accessed.

Encourage students to pursue their own academic interests and support them in doing so. This can be done, for instance, by providing letters of recommendation for scholarship applications, publishing term papers, advertising extracurricular opportunities, or notifying students of current vacancies for student assistants.

As diversity-relevant topics, social origin and educational attainment are of great importance. Therefore, integrate them as teaching topics into your seminars and lectures. This can be done in a variety of ways, for example in the social sciences by means of social structure analyses, or in literary studies through readings of educational attainment novels.

As part of university life, classes are also a way for students to get to know each other and build networks. Therefore, give students the opportunity to establish new contacts within the framework of your courses. Interactive formats such as group work, discussion groups, among others, are particularly suitable for this purpose. If possible, try to include students from higher semesters in your courses so that they can act as role models for younger students.

First-generation students frequently come equipped with differing prior knowledge, receive less support from their families, have additional family obligations, or have to work a part-time job in order to be able to finance their studies. All of this has an impact on their performance. It is therefore important that you demonstrate an awareness and understanding of these life realities and consider them in the design and teaching of your courses.

Use your courses to draw attention to university services and programs that might be interesting or helpful to your students. These can be, for example, courses of the scientific writing or language center, panel discussions, or extracurricular workshops at your institute. In this context, you are also welcome to draw attention to registration deadlines for courses or examinations.

Were you a first-generation student yourself? Don't be afraid to communicate this openly and tell students about your experiences. This may give students a sense of belonging and may even motivate them to consider a career in academia as well.

Offer students the opportunity to approach you with questions regarding their studies. If necessary, you can refer the students with their concerns to the appropriate advising center or the subject-specific student advisor. You are welcome to use all other contents of the POWERst Toolbox for this purpose.

With its Mixed Classroom Model, VU Amsterdam offers a well-founded, field-tested, university didactic concept with which you can draw added value for your courses and the learning success of your students from the diversity of your students. In addition to a variety of concrete tips for lesson design, the model supports you with a wide range of practical methods.

With the Diversity Guidelines of the University of Stuttgart, the Working Group Diversity provides ideas for diversity-sensitive teaching, links to further documents, to individual topics as well as to contact persons, which you can use to deal with individual aspects in more detail or if the course groups you supervise have corresponding needs.