Authoring tool for virtual physics lessons and the Friday Conference for practicing interpreting under conference conditions come out tops in the state Excellence Competition
22.04.2008
The students' votes decided it in their favor: Five lecturers from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz are in receipt of the 2008 Rhineland-Palatinate Teaching Award. In addition, two JGU projects emerged as the winners of the state's Excellence Competition for Learning and Teaching. The winners were awarded their prizes during the Day of Teaching 2008 event. The President of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Professor Dr. Georg Krausch, congratulated the award winners: "We share with you both your pleasure in winning this award and in your students’ appreciation." He pointed out that the university, as part of its quality program for the continuous improvement of learning and teaching, is constantly striving to make the academic environment the very best possible – a considerable challenge in view of the fact that JGU counts almost 35,000 students. "However, what today's award ceremony demonstrates is the individual commitment of the individual lecturers and those behind the relevant projects and it is the result of their own efforts entirely," he said.
This is the third occasion on which the Ministry for Education, Science, Youth, and Culture has awarded the Rhineland-Palatinate Teaching Award as part of the university program "Knowledge Creates Future." The award is designed to recognize outstanding achievements in teaching and to promote high-quality teaching. Each award is worth €10,000. The winners are determined using a ranking system generated by the Evaluation Association of Institutes of Higher Education from the results of analysis of student surveys. In the relevant questionnaires, students are asked to evaluate and grade some 30 different aspects of courses they have attended.
In the two competition discipline sectors Society, Law, Economics, and Sports as well as Culture, Linguistics, Humanities, Arts, Music, and Theology, three members of JGU are among the award winners:
- Hanna Kaspar, M.A.
Faculty 02: Social Sciences, Media, and Sports
Institute of Political Science - Professor Dr. Stephan Füssel
Faculty 05: Philosophy and Philology
Institute of Book Science - Dr. habil. Dörte Andres
Faculty 06: Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies
Department of French and Italian Language and Culture.
Two awards were given to members of Mainz University working in the discipline sectors Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Engineering Sciences, Computer Science, and Medicine:
- Dr. med. habil. Christine Espinola-Klein
Faculty 04: Medicine
Department of Internal Medicine II (Cardiology, Angiology, Poison Control Center) - Professor Dr. Heini Wernli
Faculty 08: Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science
Institute of Atmospheric Physics.
The Ministry of Education first instituted the annual Rhineland-Palatinate Excellence Competition for Learning and Teaching in April 2006. The primary objective of this competition is to promote innovative concepts that transcend routine teaching activities and help to advance teaching. The applications submitted are reviewed by a jury, consisting of three experts each from the fields of education and higher education research, representatives of university administrations, and student representatives. The awards, which are worth up to €50,000 (and even €100,000 in special cases), are given to a maximum of three faculties per year at institutes of higher education in Rhineland-Palatinate. In 2008, two of these went to Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
The "Authoring tool for developing a web-based virtual laboratory" project, submitted by the JGU Faculty of Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science, was deemed worthy of a 2008 award. The aim of the project is to put in place a wide range of e-learning concepts for the teaching of physics through the generation of virtual representations, especially at the extreme limits of size scales from submicroscopic bodies to cosmic sizes and speeds, to help make the subject more accessible. The "Friday Conference" at Faculty 06: Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies in Germersheim also received an award. This Friday Conference is a 90-120 minute-long cross-linguistic multilingual teaching event held every Friday that is open to all students of translation and interpretation. Here, exam candidates can practice simultaneous interpreting in conference situations and then receive feedback on their performance.