Student diversity is part of the reality of everyday university life. Participants in courses bring different backgrounds and perspectives into the classroom, resulting also from experiences of discrimination and privilege in social structures of inequality. Why does this matter for your teaching? How can you create a learning environment that enables good learning for all participants, takes into account the diversity of students’ life circumstances and, in the best case, uses it as a resource for the joint learning process? What particularities need to be considered for the natural sciences?

In this workshop, you will deal with various dimensions of gender- and diversity-conscious teaching, such as methods, communication, teaching content and framework conditions, and learn about important principles for good teaching. In doing so, we follow a concept of diversity that strengthens anti-discrimination as a perspective. You will be informed about the legal foundations, regulations and counseling services at Freie Universität that provide the framework for the implementation of diversity and anti-discrimination. We will focus on cases for specific situations in courses, analyze their gender and diversity-related aspects and develop methodological options for your course design. You will have the opportunity to bring examples from your own teaching to the workshop.

Learning objectives

Participants will

• learn about the legal foundations and internal university regulations on diversity
• receive an introduction to the central concepts of diversity and anti-discrimination in teaching
• deal with various dimensions of gender- and diversity-conscious teaching
• train their reflection skills
• develop approaches for designing their own courses,

Trainers

Dr. Jana Gerlach, coordinator „Toolbox Gender & Diversity in academic teaching“, Margherita-von-Brentano-Zentrum, Freie Universität Berlin

Dr. Alette Winter, coordinator Graduate Center & Doctoral Program Natural Sciences, Diversity officer, Department of Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacy, Freie Universität Berlin