Press release: University launches nationwide unique Hetairos Programme

Nr. 63/2010 - 24.03.2010

Hetairos is the word for ‘friend’ or ‘colleague’ in Ancient Greek. And it now also denotes a programme: the project of the Graduiertenschule für Geisteswissenschaften Göttingen (GSGG) seeks to bring newcomers together with experienced colleagues to facilitate their start in the everyday business of university teaching. This means that a young teacher and an ‘old hand’ form a so-called ‘teaching team’. The experienced teachers are available to give advice to the beginners, join forces in planning the first seminar, and provide assistance in teaching the session. In this way, the beginners experience their first teaching encounter not as a case of ‘jumping in at the deep end’, but are instead able to benefit from working with a well-versed co-teacher.

The ten teaching teams have already been selected and will be giving their first joint seminar in the summer semester. First of all, though, the young university teachers will be turning their attention to theoretical issues. They begin by receiving an introduction to the fundamentals of university teaching: How should a seminar be designed? What does taking the role of teacher involve? What are the expectations on the part of students? These aspects are followed up by scrutiny of examples from practice and a seminar on the subject of good examining. Since the teacher’s most important tool is her voice, participants also receive guidance on vocal technique and rhetoric training. This then culminates in a team exercise: each junior and senior teacher team prepares a seminar, right through from its planning to its teaching and evaluation.

“This particular combination integrating team-teaching into accompanying courses and practice-based discussions is unique nationwide for doctoral students”, explains project coordinator Florian Grötsch. The Hetairos Programme is intended to give the young academics a professional start in university teaching and thus improve teaching quality. Participants are also gaining skills to enhance their qualification for an academic career. The Programme was developed in cooperation with Göttingen’s Department of University Didactics and is financed out of the central tuition-fee fund for the improvement of teaching. The plan is to continue the project during the winter semester and the initiators are currently hoping to find cooperation partners within the University and the state of Lower Saxony. “We are already receiving numerous enquiries from doctoral students and lecturers asking about extension of the programme”, says Florian Grötsch.