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About us

teaching Centre Intro

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” (Benjamin Franklin)

Teaching skills and experience are not only an important precondition for an academic career but are also valuable key skills for almost all areas of work and life. The Teaching Centre provides doctoral and postdoctoral researchers of the GCSC and GGK with in-depth training in teaching the study of culture and supports them in their first higher-education teaching experiences.

Our classes and events, designed to qualify doctoral researchers in the study of culture to teach, offer not only the opportunity to become familiar with participant-based and task-based approaches to teaching and learning, but also useful support in planning and running own courses. The focus here is on developing professional teaching ability, analysing problems within teaching and learning, and reflecting upon the teaching experience.

Teaching Centre

Learning to Teach − What we Offer

We provide ample opportunity to (post-)doctoral researchers of JLU’s faculties 03, 04, and 05 to gain competences in higher education teaching. Whether you are a sociologist, a historian, a linguist, or a literary scholar – our workshops are tailored to the needs of all those in the study of culture: 

  • Introductory courses to participant-based and task-based approaches to teaching and learning as the optimal preparation for running seminars
  • A curriculum aimed at qualifying PhD candidates for teaching
  • Experience in teaching through the participation in the Co-Teaching Programme and a lecture or workshop series, in which doctoral candidates present core themes of their disciplines, aided by professors and the Teaching Centre staff
  • Individual support and advice with the actual planning and running of courses
  • Examples of materials available for download, such as PhD students’ tried and tested examples of syllabi and ideas for seminars
  • Support in creating a Teaching Portfolio to evaluate and record teaching experiences
  • University Teaching Certificates as official Teaching Centre documentation of the skills gained

For questions, information and suggestions please contact us!
Decorative image: Taking notes at a teaching centre course.
Decorative image: Taking notes at a teaching centre course.
Contact

Otto-Behaghel-Straße 12
35394 Gießen
Phone: +49 641 / 99-30 027
Fax: +49 641 / 99-30 049

E-Mail: Teaching.Centre

 

Team

Photo Claudia Hattendorff

Prof. Dr. Claudia Hattendorff

Head of the Teaching Centre

Claudia.Hattendorff
phone: +49 641 / 99-30 023
Karl-Glöckner-Straße 21 H (Raum 6)

Cara Illert

Teaching Centre Assistant 

Cara.Illert
phone: +49 641 / 99-300 27
room 104
Photo Felix Mansour

Felix Mansour

Teaching Centre Student Assistant

Felix.Mansour
phone: +49 641 / 99-30 045
room 15-17
Background

Institutional Background of the Teaching Centre

Foundation

Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hallet, university lecturer in the field of English language and literature didactics, the Teaching Centre of the GCSC celebrated its opening ceremony in December 2007 as a new institution for the didactic training and further education of (post-)doctoral students in the study of culture at JLU.

AG Hochschuldidaktik Literaturwissenschaft

The Teaching Centre built on the experience and preliminary work of the working group "University Didactics Literary Studies" ("Hochschuldidaktik Literaturwissenschaft"). The working group saw itself as an interdisciplinary forum for discussing the specific problems of literary didactics in planning and conducting seminars and events at the university. It was founded in September 2004 by doctoral students of literary studies (among others Dorothee Birke, Stella Butter and Monika Sproll).

On November 14 and 15, 2008, the working group organized the workshop "Lehr-Stücke" - Ideen und Erfahrungen zur Verbesserung der Hochschullehre (Teaching Pieces - Ideas and Experiences for the Improvement of University Teaching) at the GCSC, for which a publication was also produced, presenting suggestions for university teaching in literary studies and contributions to a discussion on didactic goals and methods.

Predoctoral Programme for the Study of Culture

The Predoctoral Programme for the Study of Culture started for the first time in the winter semester 2016/17. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Katharina Stornig, Junior Professor of Cultural History at JLU and Head of the Teaching Centre, the "Predoc Programme" was established as an annually announced support programme of the GCSC and the Departments 03, 04 and 05 of Justus Liebig University Giessen, which prepares students of cultural studies disciplines for the challenges of a doctorate and offers early orientation in the final phase of studies.

 

Conferences and Publications of the Teaching Centre

 

 

Contributions

 
Based on the doctoral students' lecture series "Key Topics in English and American Studies", two issues of the series 'Key Topics' have been published. The contributions present overviews of central topics and areas of English and American literature and linguistics from a cultural studies perspective.
 
Conferences

Conferences

  • Teaching Literature and Culture in Higher Education. Hochschuldidaktik in den Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften (10.-11. June 2010; Cooperation with HDM)
    The conference focused on theoretical and methodological approaches to dealing with various media formats, such as images, films, music or computer games, in teaching. The conference was aimed at teachers and those interested in didactics in literary studies and all subjects with a cultural studies orientation.

Conference proceedings:
Wolfgang Hallet (Ed.) (2013): Literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Hochschuldidaktik. Konzepte, Methoden, Lehrbeispiele. Trier: WVT.

  • Werkstatt-Treffen: Kulturwissenschaften (summer & winter term 2016)
    The series consisted of workshops offered by GCSC postdocs in collaboration with non-university collaborators. The planning process was framed by an introduction to the didactics of public science communication for cultural studies.
  • Modelle öffentlicher Wissenschaftskommunikation (24. November 2016; Cooperation with University Koblenz-Landau)
    The Teaching Centre is committed to strengthening science communication - not only through undergraduate teaching, but also with regard to an interested public outside the university. Therefore, the conference was not structured as a classical academic conference, but as an exchange with practitioners from culture and science journalism on the public impact and relevance of cultural studies research. Programme
  • Surveillance Cultures. International Conference (6.-7. July 2017)
    The interdisciplinary conference approached the political-cultural dimensions of surveillance practices and techniques in current empirical reality as well as in the historical contexts from which they emerged. It also looked into the ways in which cultural representations of surveillance in various media grant insight into the particular experiences generated through exposure to and effecting of surveillance.

This resulted in a Special Issue in On_Culture in 2018:
Wibke Schniedermann, Wolfgang Hallet (Eds.): Surveillance Cultures. On_Culture 6 (2018).

Former coordinators

Former Coordinators

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hallet, Head of Teaching Centre
Prof. Dr. Katharina Stornig, Head of Teaching Centre

Stefanie Bock, Coordination Teaching Centre
Dr. Stella Butter, Coordination Teaching Centre
Justus Grebe, Coordination Teaching Centre
Judith Hofmann, Coordination Teaching Centre
Dr. Jan Rupp, Coordination Teaching Centre
Jan Simon Schäfer, Coordination Teaching Centre
Dr. Wibke Schniedermann, Coordination Teaching Centre
Annika Stendebach, Coordination Predoc Programme
Anna Weigel, Coordination Predoc Programme
Katharina Wolf, Coordination Predoc Programme & Teaching Centre