Teachings beyond words

(Image: Pixabay CC0) - Even in digital courses, it's not just the spoken word that counts. Aspects such as tone of voice, eye contact and the appreciation experienced are also important, as a study by the University of Würzburg shows . With the corona pandemic came its big boom: digital lectures. Depending on the incidence and the respective regulations, lecturers and students met digitally in specially set up Zoom meetings. Alternatively, some of the students sat at a safe distance in the lecture hall, while the rest followed the proceedings on their PCs in their study rooms. How these different settings affect teaching and learning was investigated by a team from the Institute of Education at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg (JMU) using the example of two seminars in the summer semester of 2023. Regina Egetenmeyer-Neher, Professor of Adult Education/Continuing Education at JMU, and Ramon Flecha, sociologist, Professor Emeritus at the University of Barcelona and at that time Visiting Professor at the Institute of Pedagogy, were responsible for the study.