Sharpening the educational toolset — Promoting professional development of university lecturers

The teaching abilities of a lecturer play a crucial part for successful learning. Therefore it is important how lecturers are prepared for their task to impart knowledge. The requirements lecturers have to cope with are complex. Fundamental for teaching are skills in pedagogical competence. But there are further requirements. Nowadays students have a different way of learning as lecturers have experienced themselves. As an outcome different teaching methods have been developed and the knowledge of these methods can help to improve teaching. However, university lecturers are experts in their own domain but need knowledge in pedagogic and didactics, therefore a lot of activities and information are offered in this field. Due to various circumstances, e.g. lack of time, unawareness of the necessity to focus on quality teaching, too much theory, these activities and information are not sufficiently used. The paper deals with this problem and shows ways to enhance engagement in professional development of educational and didactical skills. In addition examples of activities are described which meet these requirements.