Prof. Dr. Heese, what do you do in your innovation professorship?

I deal with the question of how students with various illnesses can be supported in teaching, particularly with regard to the neuropsychological limitations that many illnesses entail. In general, support is offered for this target group in addition to the courses, for example in the form of tutorials, learning assistance or learning advice. I am interested in what you have to do or not do in the courses themselves in order to provide support.

How could other lecturers, students and researchers (at OTH) benefit from your project?

First of all, I'm interested in teaching in the health and social sciences at my faculty. If some dos and don'ts can be found here, then that would certainly be of interest to other teachers in my faculty. It remains to be seen whether this can also be used by engineers or architects. I do think that the learning cultures and didactics of the individual disciplines differ greatly. Perhaps you shouldn't expect universal recipes. And then I am mainly exploratory in the context of the LIP, i.e. I explore possibilities and generate hypotheses rather than being able to test them. However, these would be starting points for further investigations. For example, this could lead to interesting doctoral projects, which I would be happy to supervise.

What motivated you to want to realize a teaching innovation?

I started working as a psychologist in a memory clinic thirty years ago. That's when I became familiar with the neuropsychology of various diseases and I've often wondered since then what role it could play in the success of courses. I am very pleased that I can now pursue this question in a more focused way.

Why is working with the concept of positive psychology interesting for you?

Positive psychology focuses on the well-being of people. There are a large number of interventions that have been developed from this psychological perspective. It makes sense to try to use these interventions to design teaching and classroom situations in such a way that they can be experienced more positively by people who are under stress in various ways.

How do you think everyday life for students could change if there were fewer stress factors due to certain elements in the courses?

If I can dream a little, I would say that a somewhat more relaxed study routine could release the joy of learning and studying. Perhaps it will then be easier to perceive a subject that you have chosen yourself as a field of opportunity for a sustainable enrichment of your own life.