Booster Workshops

What do your students already know about your subject? How diverse is the knowledge the students bring? These questions are common questions that teaching staff ask themselves when thinking about the students who come to their courses. Answering them is an important key for success learning. Teaching is most effective when lecturers understand who their students are and what prior knowledge, skills and attitudes they bring to class. Lecturers can then actively respond to what they discover in order to lead students to the desired learning outcomes. During this course participants will discuss their ideas and conclusions with other participants in order to refine their own teaching plans for the future.

By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Describe the value of assessing students' prior knowledge relating to specific scientific concepts and processes
• Implement methods for revealing students' prior knowledge
• Adjust teaching plans accordingly to lead students to desired learning outcomes
• Reflect on experience and feedback to identify future teaching decisions

This workshop is suitable for anyone who has the freedom to shape the courses they teach and is facilitated by Karin Brown from LET (Educational Development and Technology) at ETH Zurich.

Do you need to design a course from scratch or complete a significant redesign an existing course? Sometimes we need a fresh perspective and an opportunity for "blue skies thinking". In this two and a half hour workshop you and your colleagues will participant in a fast-paced, structured process that results in a complete course outline, including identification of appropriate assessment tasks.

By the end of the workshop you will:

• apply evidence based practice to the course design process
• design an overarching course outline based on your teaching context
• plan when the most important learning activities should take place
• select appropriate assessment tasks that demonstrate desired competence

You will work with others in your team to (re)design your course that it prioritises active learning and the development of your students' competencies. Therefore it is mandatory that you sign up in small teams. A minimum of two people are required so that you can build momentum.

This workshop is facilitated by Dr. Philip Barth and Karin Brown, both from LET (Educational Development and Technology) at ETH Zurich.

In today's rapidly changing world, it is more important than ever for students to develop transferable competencies, such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication. In this workshop, we will explore how to integrate these competencies into your teaching.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Identify opportunities to foster transferable competencies in your teaching
• Plan and implement strategies to foster transferable competencies in your classroom
• Develop a critical-constructive attitude towards the fostering of transferable competencies by exchanging with peers.

We will provide you with a variety of resources and strategies for integrating transferable competencies into your teaching. We will also facilitate discussions and activities that will allow you to share ideas and experiences with other participants.

This workshop is suitable for ETH lecturers with the responsibility to shape the courses they teach.

This workshop will be facilitated by Dr. Philip Barth, Dr. Michèle Gemünden and Dr. Marion Lehner (LET).

Jupyter notebooks enable you to easily enrich your classes with code-based interactive visualisations and exercises. JupyterLab is a versatile platform where you can create, edit, run code, describe content knowledge, use mathematical language, and visualize information all in the same environment.

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

• Describe the features and benefits of JupyterLab and Jupyter notebooks.
• Create engaging and well-structured Jupyter notebooks using MyST.
• Set up and discuss the blueprint of your own Jupyter notebook usage scenario (in class), including the learning outcomes, the content structure, the assessment methods, and the feedback mechanisms.

This workshop is ideal for anyone who wants to learn how to use JupyterLab and Jupyter notebooks for teaching and learning purposes. You will also get the opportunity to network with other instructors and learners who share your interest in Jupyter and its purposes

This workshop will be facilitated by Daniel Flück and Dr. Katrin Bentel (LET).

This booster workshop provides the basics for understanding measures and adjustments to improve digital accessibility. It is aimed at all members of ETHZ who are involved in any way in teaching or in the creation of learning materials such as e-learning content, electronic documents and learning videos, as well as exams. This includes lecturers and the creators of learning content themselves, but also those responsible for the digital learning infrastructure.

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Describe what e-​Accessibility is all about and where digital accessibility is crucial in teaching.
• Check your learning materials for accessibility.
• Create accessible learning materials or at least find support for creating accessible content.

The workshop will be led by Anton Bolfing (LET, Educational Development and Technology) from ETH Zurich.

Do you have students who have diverse backgrounds and cultures, or different learning needs and styles? Are you interested in exploring how strategies for inclusive teaching and course design can improve elements of your teaching and learning environment? Would you like to explore your curriculum and course content from the perspective of inclusive teaching?

In this workshop you will

• Be introduced to a range of strategies and voices on inclusive teaching
• Apply these strategies to a specially designed case study
• Exchange ideas with course colleagues on the methods and their application
• Reflect on how these ideas and tools can be used in your own teaching context

This workshop is open to all teaching staff interested in the topic of inclusive teaching.

The workshop will be facilitated by Dr. Anna M. Garry from LET (Educational Development and Technology) at ETH Zürich.

Rising student numbers in some areas of ETH Zurich, are pushing lecturers to reconsider their current teaching strategies and to “scale up” in order to meet the demands of larger groups. One way to do this is to try to make the large crowd "feel small". This can be achieved with strategies such as how they communicate with students and which which methods, how they integrate and train Teaching Assistants to tutor small groups and using technology to automate processes such as feedback and assessment or to create more engagement opportunities. Join workshop to learn more about evidence-based strategies, why they work and which might be most appropriate for your teaching situation. This workshop harnesses their tried and true teaching methods already in place at ETH Zurich.

By the end of this workshop participants will be able to:

• describe a range of strategies for making a large crowd feel small
• select and implement methods for teaching large groups of students
• reflect on the successes and shortcomings of chosen methods and
• report on their effectiveness for student learning

This workshop is suitable for teaching staff at all levels who are anticipating either teaching a large class or a sudden increase in student numbers.

The facilitators are Karin Brown and Dr. Philip Barth from the unit for Educational Development and Technology. 

Unlock your creativity and discover essentials of shooting and editing stunning videos using only your smartphone. The booster workshop will delve into smartphone settings, discuss the nuances of indoor and outdoor lighting, explore different camera movements and introduce useful additional gear and apps.

By the end of this course you will:

• Understand the fundamentals of smartphone video making, including composition, lighting and sound.
• Learn about ways of using smartphone videos for educational purposes
• Be able to produce a video or a series of videos with the help of learned techniques

The workshop is beneficial for everyone who wants to expand their knowledge in smartphone videography and will be led by Kateryna Makarenko and Karin Brown (LET, Educational Development and Technology, EduMedia team) from ETH Zurich.