Two LMU lecturers receive Award for Good Teaching

Enlarge

At the end of March, Bavarian Minister of Science Markus Blume handed out the 2024 Awards for Good Teaching to 20 university educators from all over Bavaria. Among the prizewinners were Dr. Viktoria Räuchle from the Faculty of History and the Arts at LMU and Dr. Robert Fux from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at LMU. “Conveying knowledge, inspiring enthusiasm for their discipline: the good teaching of today creates the excellence of tomorrow,” emphasized Minister Blume at the awards ceremony.

The educators are put forward by their home university, which solicits the opinions of students as part of the nomination process. Viktoria Räuchle regularly receives “brilliant feedback” from her students, the nomination explains: “She always peps up her classes with interactive elements such as quizzes, fun facts, and various hybrid groupwork formats. To this end, she often employs modern IT and AI technology.”

The practical bent of her teaching is also apparent in the excursions she enthusiastically organizes – to Athens, for example – or in the tutorials designed around museum exhibits (“School of Seeing”). The nomination also cited her talent for drawing parallels between the ancient world and the present – by connecting ancient myths with today’s fake news, for example, or with modern questions of identity and gender. And last but not least, she is “exceptionally dedicated” in the supervision of her students.

Räuchle is thrilled about the award. “I’d like to thank everyone who contributed – most of all, naturally, our wonderful students,” she says. “And if it results in more students taking classes in classical archeology, then I couldn’t be happier.”

Don’t fear the gap!

The students of Robert Fux were full of praise in their evaluations of his lectures and tutorials. They singled out the clear structure of his lessons, his practical teaching style, and the high degree of interactivity. A core tenet of Fux’s teaching is encapsulated in a favorite phrase of his, as quoted in his nomination: “That is to say, students should not learn every detail off by heart, but understand the underlying principles.”

Fux also cultivates an interactive teaching climate. He divides students into small ‘confab groups’ (Mauschelgruppen), for example, where they work on topics and develop solutions on their own. Equally, he weaves current clinical issues into his teaching and makes connections with other subjects – something appreciated not just by his students, but also by his colleagues.

For Fux, the Award for Good Teaching “will encourage me in my efforts to inspire students with my passion for my subject and strive for excellence in teaching. ”Professor Oliver Jahraus, Vice President for Teaching and Studies at LMU, was delighted with the awards for two outstanding LMU educators: “It shows once again that it is not only the research at our university that is high quality, but also the teaching.”

This year was the 25th edition of the Bavarian Ministry of Science’s “Awards for Good Teaching.” Each award comes with a prize of 5,000 euros. The focus of the event is on promoting innovative and effective teaching and learning processes. The University of Würzburg hosted this year’s awards ceremony.