Franziska Widmer
Bachelor students in social work at a university of applied sciences have diverse educational backgrounds. As a consequence, during a lecture, one group may feel overwhelmed whereas the other group is bored and not challenged enough.
The hypothesis of the SoTL project is thus the following: What can be done in the process of lesson preparation and during the actual lecture to address the heterogeneity of the students in order to best serve their needs and interests so that as many students as possible feel challenged, neither bored nor overwhelmed?
The goal of the project is to take material from an already existing course and rework the course based on theory. Feedback from students is used to determine whether their level of theoretical and practical knowledge has been addressed. The results serve to critically examine the usefulness of the measures applied and to develop considerations for further adaptation for diversity-sensitive teaching.
Theory-based proposals dealing with such disparities are incorporated in presentations and lectures, mostly based on last year’s material.
The research bases on three qualitative group interviews and by an anonymous evaluation. The material is evaluated with content analysis based on Mayring.
Results: The general level of adaption to previous knowledge is satisfying. The need of repetition of knowledge from previous courses has been discussed controversial. A need students acknowledge is to have theory more merged with practical issues. Students know what workload they can expect, but they wish to have tasks given as early as possible, to have a better chance to join lectures well prepared. This might be a possibility to enhance accessibility.
Instruction for composition for group work is important to establish a trustful learning atmosphere.
Last not least, hardly any conclusions can be drawn about motivation, interest and satisfaction from the behavior of students in class.
