Teaching and Learning
LAS is an approach to education, not just a program name. It builds on an engaged academic community – LAS staff, Teaching Fellows, students and alumni – in which teaching and learning can take on many different forms:
1. Insights into LAS courses, excursions, projects...
UCF hosts about 50 LAS courses per semester. And LAS offers opportunities for project-based teaching and learning outside the classroom.
Some insights into LAS teaching and learning formats:
- Robot Design – an elective course on the theory, philosophy, and practice of robots
- Re-Enchanting Greece – an interdisciplinary excursion focusing on sustainability and memorialization
- Beer and Wine – a mini-seminar on the culture and the craft of beer and wine
- Science Journalism – a course on journalistic knowledge transfer including student film productions
- Design Thinking – workshop by LAS alumna Theresa Weinstein in the intensive course Entrepreneurship
- Moot Court – students at the European Human Rights Moot Court Competition
- Image Analysis for the Sciences – elective course on current trends in technology
- Global Sustainability Week 2022
- Internships and practical projects in the LAS Electives
2. Studying in Corona times – digital and transnational
While challenging for instructors and students, online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic is transforming higher (LAS) education: we can reach more students, organize events more flexibly, and are institutionalizing new forms of transnational collaboration – for example in EPICUR or in our VirtualLAS projects.
Impressions of new forms and experiences with digital and transnational teaching and learning:
- The student perspective – starting Liberal Arts and Sciences from abroad
- Hungrig auf das echte Uni-Leben – LAS student Jule Schürmann interviewed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung
- Lisa in Madrid – a study abroad experience during the pandemic
- Science and Practice of Sustainable Gardening – course in the ESS Major
- Pandemics in History – VirtualLAS international online course in the Life Sciences
- Mediated Modelling for Sustainability – collaborative course across the EPICUR alliance
- Postcolonial Europe: A Podcast – an EPICUR course including student podcast production
- EPICUR teaching and learning experiences – interview with Prof. Miriam Nandi
- Welcome Week 2020, Open Days... – digital experiences beyond teaching and learning
- Hybrid Teaching – some impressions from the course "Introduction to Life Sciences"
3. Teaching and learning principles
LAS education is a process of intellectual discovery and personal development. Students learn about the human and the non-human worlds, systematically develop their capacity for high-level academic work, and gradually unfold their interests and abilities in ways suited to their aspirations. We encourage students to critically reflect on science and knowledge and to become skilled communicators and creative shapers of their environment.
The following teaching and learning principles guide our work at UCF:
Integrating freedom and structure
The LAS program is set in a challenging and dynamic learning environment in which students can shape their own academic path within a structured set of possibilities. In comparison to one-size-fits-all programs, LAS offers more room for choice and self-directed learning. At the same time, students develop shared knowledge and skills in the compulsory Core and Major courses. This integration of freedom and structure distinguishes LAS in Freiburg from less structured LAS programs. We aim to develop students' ability for rigorous academic inquiry and allow them to develop and follow their intellectual curiosity.
Crossing disciplinary boundaries
Right from the start, students learn about the practices and traditions of academic disciplines. They learn how knowledge is generated in the natural and social sciences and in the humanities. Supported by courses that reflect on knowledge and science, this exposure to academic diversity sharpens students' independent thinking and raises awareness for disciplinary blind spots as well as possibilities of interdisciplinary collaboration. With this foundation and further exchanges across disciplinary boundaries throughout their studies, students learn to deal with complex interdisciplinary issues in both research and professional practice.
Creating a learning community
Bringing the right people together and creating spaces for stimulating exchange of ideas and knowledge is the key to academic learning and personal development. LAS brings together students and lecturers from a variety of academic and cultural backgrounds and with a wide range of interests. We share intellectual openness and the willingness learn and develop. This spirit and the College atmosphere provide an inspiring environment for learning and knowledge creation in and beyond the classroom.
Mixing teaching methods
Due to the broad range of academic topics and disciplines covered in the LAS program and as people have different learning styles, we apply a variety of teaching methods – from seminars to lectures, from real-world projects and excursions to research-based learning. In general, courses are rather small-scale and adaptable to the students' learning process.
Multilingualism as added value
English is the language of instruction and default for communication at UCF. And yet, multilingualism is crucial for international communication and for academic and professional mobility. As part of the LAS program, all students learn to communicate on academic topics in excellent English and develop skills in another foreign language. Students who do not speak German are required to learn German so as to gain access to the city and University of Freiburg as well as to the rich German traditions in the sciences and humanities.