Teaching geology in our backyard… adapting my course to online teaching during the pandemic by recording videos such as this one on the concept of strike and dip (see the video below)
Award Ceremony for the Distance teaching award in March 2022 with all awardees, from left to right: Dr. Johannes Warter (Arbeits- und Wirtschaftsrecht), MSc Vicky König (Psychologie), Dr. Armin Raderbauer (Sportwissenschaften), Dr. Bianca Heberer, Dr. Petra Siwek-Marcon (School of Education) and Rector Prof. Dr. Lehnert (right) and Vice Rector Prof. Dr. Weichbold (left) (© PLUS)
„Rocks in a box“ – Take away rock specimen collection ready for pick-up. Two such boxes were provided for each student.
Screenshots of a video on how to construct geological profiles

My joy for teaching goes back to my years of study when I worked as a guide in a large natural history museum (Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt). I gained my first experience in university teaching during my PhD studies at Freiburg, Germany, as a leader of mapping courses and field classes. At Salzburg University, I am actively involved in teaching geology as well as biology students (future teachers). My teaching portfolio covers petrography, geological profiles, an introductory course into geoscientific methods, a field-trip to the surroundings of Salzburg as well as an advanced course dealing with methods applied in Historic Geology. In total I have taught more than 50 courses.

NEWS: Distance teaching award 2021

With the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 teaching has been severely affected by the shift to e-learning. Providing alternative pathways was an unprecedented challenge particularly for those classes, that require a physical setup. In my case, this was an introductory course into petrography and geological profiles, two areas conceivably unsuitable for distance learning. By nature, rock and mineral identification is a haptic process, and I believe that pictures are not enough! Following this belief, my student assistant and I expanded the rock specimen collection and packed individual boxes for each student. Recorded PowerPoint slides guided them through this part of the course. Weekly online meetings coupled with a large number of self-made videos set the frame for a successful online setup for the second part. This course has recently been awarded the Distance Teaching Award of the University of Salzburg for the study year 2020/21.

Many colleagues contributed in one way or the other to this successful version of my course: Among them, our “Tutorin” / student assistant Sandra Graser was a tremendous help, Gerti Friedl contributed many samples for the boxes, and Jake Ciborowski from the University of Brighton shared a lot of great and very helpful material for online teaching. I really appreciated this! And after all, the commitment and enthusiasm of the course participants made the effort more than worth it!

I am happy to share content – so just get in touch!

Pandemic teaching in my backyard: Explaining the concept of strike and dip