Detailed Comments on Teaching Guidelines
The following provides details on our teaching guidelines and what we understand as “research-based teaching.”
University Business School
Universities and faculties are communities of students and university teaching staff characterized by institutionalized forms of interrelated research and teaching. While they differ from pure research institutions that do not include teaching, they are also distinct from nonuniversity teaching institutions where teaching is not necessarily linked to research. For example, at universities, the knowledge taught is also generated there, and subject to ongoing critical reflection on its validity, both factual and ethical.
Links between research and teaching
Being both researcher and teacher is a fundamental principle for all teachers, but that does not mean that each individual teacher must conduct research across all of their teaching areas. The advantage is that teaching staff can represent the latest research—although, no single person can conduct that much research if they also have to teach. That said, teaching must also keep pace with students’ own progress and address research issues at all levels from basic knowledge to advanced matters.
University teaching is research-based. It is not merely a matter of imparting established knowledge; it also involves considering and training the process of acquiring, generating, critically assessing, further developing, and refreshing knowledge.
The vital links between research and teaching encourage, train, and obligate both students and teaching staff to cultivate an attitude that goes beyond the desire to reproduce textbook knowledge; they raise awareness of the need for ongoing theoretical and empirical review and evolution of the material in question. This is true for individual research work as well as for research methods.
Relationship between students and teaching staff
This means that university teaching puts independent thinking center stage for everyone involved. Thinking independently is the result of the intrinsic motivation to responsibly study meaningful topics, as a process of mutual influence between the individual and the object of study as part of a process of critical self-reflection. To this end, university education sets forth and fosters, in line with our values, the willingness to expand our horizons and to question what we otherwise consider self-evident.
Teachers inspire these interactive processes through cutting-edge teaching methods that use modern, including digital, tools. Students assume responsibility for their own learning and bring their own interests, time, and willingness to intensively focus and critically reflect on the learning material.
Teachers and students treat each other, in their respective roles, with mutual respect, kindly, and constructively. As the Business School community, we are all responsible for the success of the teaching and learning process; each and every group makes its own contribution to this endeavor. In our interactions, we create a learning-friendly, psychologically safe climate and do our best to support the development of potential and personality among students and staff.
Output I—Relationships between the different areas of responsibility
Independent thought and critical reflection need confidence and familiarity with the subject at hand. Similarly, knowledge of a subject’s social relevance requires a thorough knowledge of the subject itself. Acquiring and presenting the current state of knowledge thus remain as important in teaching as exams at the University. The subdisciplines in the Hamburg School of Business Administration may determine the scope and extent of knowledge or expertise required to foster independent thinking and a sense of responsibility for a particular subject and may vary from subject to subject.
However, research-based teaching goes far beyond the mere acquisition of knowledge. Namely, it fosters a certain approach to knowledge itself—including the acquisition and use of autonomous analytical skills. These require comprehensive expertise and the ability to structure material, while also being able to argue and reflect on specific issues. Furthermore, research-based education should facilitate the ability to question and assess, by analyzing statements and the scope of their claimed validity.
Addressing material through ongoing review and revision of material and knowledge fosters belief in the need for evidence-based decisions, ongoing empirical review of received knowledge, and lifelong learning and provides the requisite skills.
A comprehensive assessment process brings in the arguments, perspectives, and interests of all parties from different schools of thought, disciplines, cultures, and interest groups. These then should be considered, reflected upon, and communicated in the development of one’s own position, elevating, among other things, the ability and willingness to embrace diversity and to act responsibly and openly in an international world.
Quantitative and empirical methods and the corresponding skills for optimizing the use of resources contribute significantly to increasing the sustainability of decisions and our graduates’ impact in the area of sustainability. More economical and improved use of resources, of course, means more sustainable solutions.
Output II—research-based teaching and professional prospects
Research-based teaching also aims to train leaders in various professional areas of society. It contributes to training future scientists and scholars, while also providing independent and valuable qualifications to those striving for a research or academic career in industry or politics. It provides all students with the tools and personal attributes for leadership characterized by self-reflection, innovative ideas, social responsibility, personal initiative, evidence-based decision-making, and critical thinking in a VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) world.