With three members of the teaching collective of the Faculty of Informatics’ Teaching Lab, which was awarded The Vice-rector’s Award for Quality Teaching this year, we spoke about the importance of first lessons, ways of supporting teachers in their pedagogical development, and about running a subject as a collective.
Why was the Teaching Lab created?
Tomáš Foltýnek: The Faculty of Informatics, unlike other faculties, heavily relies on student seminar tutors. It’s quite common for senior students to lead seminars in courses they themselves took in previous years. This has many advantages, supported by scientific research: student tutors are much closer to the students, they understand them better, can explain content in a more accessible way, and students aren’t afraid to ask them questions they might hesitate to ask a senior academic. So the relationship between students and tutors is better, but of course, there are potential risks. Student tutors lack teaching experience, so the quality of instruction could be lower. The Teaching Lab exists precisely to mitigate this risk as much as possible. From course opinion polls, we know that there are no significant differences in teaching quality ratings between student tutors and academic tutors. Similarly, data doesn’t show that student tutors prepare students for exams any worse. This is also because course guarantors communicate with the tutors, give them tasks to work on during seminars — including methodological notes — and thus guide them in a way. In addition to that, the Teaching Lab is here to build pedagogical competencies.
How did the three of you become part of the Teaching Lab teachers’ team?
TF: Shortly after I started working at FI as a lecturer, I attended a workshop on teaching methods. Then the organizers approached me to see if I wanted to join the Teaching Lab teachers’ team. I’ve been part of it ever since.
Lucia Hradecká: I first participated in the Teaching Lab as a student. About a year and a half later, thanks to other activities within the Teaching Lab community, I reconnected with the teachers’ team and was invited to teach one lesson as an external teacher. At the end of that semester, I was invited to join permanently. I agreed because it allows me to contribute to the quality of teaching at our faculty.
Ondřej Hrdlička: Like Lucka, I first took the Teaching Lab as a student. You can enroll in it repeatedly, although it’s recommended with some time in between. When I enrolled again a year later, during the final meeting with my mentor, the idea came up to improve the course by introducing ROPOT as a form of spaced repetition. That fit well into my schedule, so I started getting involved that way last year. Gradually, I’ve become more and more involved, and this fall I’ll be leading some lessons as a team member.
“What happens in the first lesson is likely to happen in the others too.”
Tomáš Foltýnek
What’s the most important takeaway for students from the first Teaching Lab lesson?
OH: The first Teaching Lab lesson, which takes place on Monday — the first day of the semester — is intentionally focused on the first seminar lesson. The topic is precedents and norms, meaning how to set up your seminar so it works well for the rest of the semester.
TF: The first seminar is where the mode of operation is established. What happens in the first lesson is likely to happen in the others too, unless it’s explicitly addressed.
So what should happen in the first seminar lesson?
OH: In the first lesson, we emphasize that it’s good to set expectations with students, like arriving on time — e.g., verbally responding to a late arrival, explicitly stating seminar rules, or simply not arriving late yourself. We also try to provide ways to create a suitable environment for asking questions. This can be practiced by encouraging students to ask us something — anything, even unrelated to the course. This sets the norm that asking questions is okay, which can then continue throughout the semester.
TF: It’s crucial never to dismiss any question as “stupid,” because that would discourage students from ever asking again.
In the Teaching Lab, you demonstrate various activities that tutors can use to support student learning. What’s your favourite?
LH: One activity we like to show — and our students often adopt—is think-pair-share (TPS). It’s a technique for actively engaging students during frontal teaching. It doesn’t take much time and can be applied in almost any context. It works like this: students respond to a question or task from the teacher. The first part is think, where each student thinks about the question and tries to solve it individually. The second part is pair, where students form pairs and discuss their solutions. They can be paired randomly or with someone who has an opposing view and then try to reach a common solution. The final part is share, where the whole group discusses the question and learns the correct answer. This method allows all students to actively participate, changes the dynamic of the lesson, and can be used in many subjects. Its benefits are also supported by scientific research.
Students conclude the course with a portfolio. What does that include, and why did you choose this type of assessment?
TF: It’s a type of assessment that best reflects individual student needs. We want students to set a personal pedagogical development goal by the third week of the semester at the latest. By then, they’ve already led a few lessons and know what they’re good at, what they struggle with, and what they want to improve. We want them to define this and set a clear criterion to know when they’ve achieved their goal. They then work toward this goal throughout the semester. The goal is different for each student, so the path to achieving it can vary. They can read academic articles, listen to podcasts, or watch videos we recommend. But it’s up to the students to choose the resources that help them meet their goal. The portfolio should demonstrate that they put in effort to achieve their goal.
LH: I’d add that the portfolio has some required parts, but students can largely tailor it to themselves. They choose the topics they focus on and the activities they use to reach their goals. This ties into what we tell our students at the beginning of each semester: if they want to improve their teaching, they need to do three things — teach, seek external inspiration (e.g., reading articles, watching videos, visiting colleagues), and reflect on their teaching to find areas for improvement. The portfolio helps fulfil the latter two alongside the teaching itself.
“When tutors teach for the first time, it helps them to know they are not alone.”
Lucia Hradecká
Earlier in the interview, you mentioned individual mentoring meetings. Can you say something about the role of the mentor-mentee relationship in the course?
OH: I haven’t mentored yet, but I can speak from the student’s perspective. The personal meeting is important — it’s a space where a lot can be discussed. The student and their portfolio are evaluated. We talk about whether the student has set a good goal and whether they’re meeting the course requirements. At the same time, mentors collect feedback on the Teaching Lab, so it’s a two-way feedback process.
TF: From the mentor’s perspective, it’s valuable feedback for me, but it should primarily be feedback for the student. I always try to ask questions that encourage the student to reflect on how they’re progressing toward their pedagogical development goal and where they might need help or support. If they’re having issues with their teaching, we address them. Mentoring meetings can take different forms, most commonly one-on-one. But I’ve had cases where multiple seminar tutors from the same course were in the Teaching Lab, and it was useful to meet with all of them together. Someone would raise a problem, and a colleague would suggest a solution. They were mentees, but in a way, they were mentoring each other too, which was great.
This year, for example, I had mentoring meetings with teaching students who weren’t tutors at our faculty but were teaching in elementary schools. That was a completely different experience — the problems they faced were different from those we deal with here. But I think it’s incredibly useful for those students/teachers to simply talk with someone external and experienced about how they teach, to get reassurance that they’re doing it right, or to get advice on how to improve.
LH: The portfolio check that Ondra mentioned is something I see mainly on a process level. We don’t want to evaluate whether students are teaching “correctly”; we want to help them improve their teaching. Many of my students have benefited from the simple reassurance that they don’t have to be perfect — and no one expects them to be. Especially when they’re teaching for the first time, it helps to know they’re not alone.
Two of you came from among the course’s alumni. Do you actively try to maintain a community of alumni, or does it happen more organically?
LH: It’s a bit of both. We definitely try to maintain a community of teachers and people who care about teaching quality. Every semester, we organize activities for a broad group of people who have come into contact with the course or its surrounding community. At the same time, it’s not particularly frequent or structured. The community includes many people with very different activities — many of whom no longer have anything to do with teaching at FI — and so it can’t be maintained in a uniform way.
“We’re a collective, and we create the semester plan and lesson sequence together. We decide together what to change and how to respond to feedback.”
Ondřej Hrdlička
How is “teaching how to teach” in the Teaching Lab different from “regular” teaching for you as members of the teachers’ team?
TF: Teaching Lab is different in that we teach in pairs, whereas I usually teach alone. The topic is different — it’s not subject matter knowledge but pedagogical knowledge. But essentially, it’s teaching like any other.
LH: Teaching Lab started as a grassroots initiative, founded by students, though of course with support from the faculty leadership. To this day, the course kind of lives its own life. There isn’t one leading figure who runs the course long-term, which I think is a big difference compared to other courses. Because of that, the course can change and adapt more easily — even every semester. In other courses where I’ve taught, I had much less influence over what and how things were taught.
OH: That’s right — we’re a collective, and we create the semester plan and lesson sequence together. We decide together what to change and how to respond to feedback. From my experience, it’s different from larger-scale courses.
Can you say something about the advantages and challenges of a teaching (and learning) collective?
OH: The hardest part is agreeing on a meeting time (laughs). There’s definitely a friendly atmosphere, and it’s still true that no one dictates anything from above — we discuss everything and come to a decision together.
TF: So far, the faculty tolerates that, due to the larger number of teachers, the course is relatively expensive. For a regular course, that might be a problem, but this course is meant to guarantee teaching quality at the faculty, so they believe it’s money well spent.
LH: We’re a fairly large group of people with different career paths and interests. One advantage is that it allows us to develop a variety of activities. We don’t just run this course — we also organize lectures for FI staff at the Colloquia of the Faculty of Informatics, open workshops for tutors, and we try to build a community of tutors at FI.
How would you summarize the benefit of participating in the Teaching Lab for student tutors and their teaching?
TF: The added value for student tutors isn’t just that they can earn money through teaching, but also that they become part of faculty life. That increases the likelihood that they’ll continue into doctoral studies or get involved in other activities. So it’s beneficial for the faculty as another way to work with talented students.
LH: I also think that many Teaching Lab students become passionate about teaching and don’t just teach for one semester but come back. Many of the things we teach in the Teaching Lab also have relevance beyond teaching. We try to support students in finding those connections so that the course and teaching aren’t just one-off experiences but have a positive impact on their broader lives.
TF: After all, there’s no real difference between leading a seminar lesson and leading a team meeting.
Would you like to add anything at the end?
LH: If you’re interested in what we do, check out our website. You’ll find sample materials from Teaching Lab lessons, links to selected resources, and a list of our research publications on teaching (not only) informatics.
Interviewer: Karolína Zlámalová, Quality Office RMU (zlamalova@rect.muni.cz)
We spoke with Sylvie Pavloková, an award-winning lecturer from the Faculty of Pharmacy, about giving and receiving feedback, drawing from personal challenges, and what asking students to “come to the blackboard” can bring.
Read about the experiences of the investigators of the internal grants to support quality teaching.
The project "Excellent Study Program in Film Theory and History and Audiovisual Culture NMGr" at Masaryk University successfully prepares students for practical application in the domestic audiovisual field, primarily thanks to an internship program and cooperation with leading filmmakers and institutions.
