On 16 September, Alice Margaria opened the programme of the Fundamental Rights Research Colloquium for the new academic year with a presentation of her book, The Construction of Fatherhood: The Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Michaela Kreyenfeld will be a discussant of the book.

In November 2019, the head of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency described the EU ‘hotspot’ in Moria, Lesbos, Greece, as “the single most worrying fundamental rights issue that we are confronting anywhere in the European Union.” An overcrowded place of confinement for those seeking refuge in the EU, it was destroyed in a devastating fire days ago, leaving nearly 13,000 men, women, and children without shelter or access to basic services.

In an apparently reaction to this tragedy, the European Commission brought forward the publication date of its new ‘Pact on Migration’ to Wed 23 September, with Commission President Von der Leyen promising ‘We'll take a human & humane approach. Saving lives at sea is not optional and those countries who fulfil their legal and moral duties or are more exposed than others, must be able to rely on the solidarity of our whole EU.’

This rapid reaction event brings together diverse voices on refugee protection to offer perspectives on the events in Lesbos, the ‘hotspot’ approach, and the Commission’s newly published Pact.

The event is in association with the German Law Journal Special Issue on Border Justice: Migration and Accountability for Human Rights Violations (2020)

In an online presentation on 20 May, Mark Dawson, Professor of European Law and Governance at the Hertie School, discussed how the EU’s political process affects the level of rights protection afforded by EU law. During the presentation the two stages of the political process affects were discussed: first, the analysis of how institutional politics plays an important role in the evolution of the EU fundamental rights framework, and second, an empiric display of how legislative interaction affects the level of protection provided by three important EU legislative acts.

How far does the German constitution, compared to other legal orders, allow for fundamental rights to be restricted in times of crises? How far can the German State change its institutional set-up as well as its legislative procedure to adjust to crisis mode? Where are the constitutional limits to restrictions such as curfews, social distancing and forced closure of businesses and has the German State in its COVID-19 response observed them?

A presentation by Pierre Thielbörger (Ruhr University Bochum/Hertie School). This webinar is part of the Fundamental Rights Research colloquium hosted by the Centre for Fundamental Rights

A webinar presentation by Başak Çalı, Professor of International Law and Director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School.

Fundamental rights-based analysis offers an important legal and ethical yardstick to evaluate the responses of states to the COVID-19 pandemic: Have states around the world tackled the pandemic through rights-protecting and rights-respecting policies? Have they offered timely responses to protect the right to life of the populations at risk? Have they struck the right balance between competing rights at stake, such as the right to health and right to life versus the right to privacy, social and economic rights, freedom of movement and freedom of assembly? Do the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic carry the potential to undermine fundamental rights protections in its aftermath, in particular, through the introduction of new surveillance technologies?

This webinar is part of the Fundamental Rights Research colloquium hosted by the Centre for Fundamental Rights.

In Episode 4 of our Hertie School Online Education Training Series, we talk about why it can be a good thing to be online and take the innovation with us back on campus

This podcast series is created by Annika Zorn, Director Digital Learning and PhD Programmes at the Hertie School. Annika is the founder of the Florence Online School of Regulation, trainer of early-career researchers in teaching at the higher education level and trainer of professional trainers. She is editor and author of the book "Higher Eduction in the Digital Age" (links below) with Jeff Haywood and Jean-Michel Glachant (open-access chapters are also available).

Host: Ashley Lauren Bamford-Kaemmereit

In Episode 3 of our Online Education Training Series, we talk about how to stay in touch with your students.

+++ Formative feedback to get a better insight into what is happening in class +++

In your course, you assess the learning of your students - often at the end of the semester or, for example, as a mid-term exam. Students might have to give a presentation or submit other graded assignments. These types of graded assessments that give a summary of what a student has learned are called ‘summative feedback’.

A second type of feedback is called ‘formative feedback’ and is usually not graded. Formative feedback serves students and teachers to understand better how the learning – and the teaching! – are going. These can be small quizzes, a Q&A during a class to see whether students are able to summarise a theoretical framework, or the submission of the final essay’s outline.

Here are a few examples of formative feedback you can use in an online:

1) Small online quizzes during the class:

Online quizzes give you immediate feedback on your teaching: Did my students catch what I just explained? As online quizzes are usually anonymous, students will not be afraid to give the wrong answer. That is a great tool to get feedback from everyone in the class how their learning is going. If half the class gives the wrong answer, maybe you want to spend a bit more time on that topic/concept? Also students will get immediate feedback whether they have understood the content of the class.

You can set-up quizzes in many webinar software or you can use tools, such as Socrative (https://socrative.com/) or Kahoot (https://create.kahoot.it/login).

2) One-minute paper at the end of the class, or just before the start of a new class:

At the start or end of the class, ask your students to sit down and write a summary answering the following two points.

- What was the most important thing you learnt this morning/during the last class?

- What was the muddiest (most unclear) concept or idea during this morning’s sessions/during last class?

It is good if you share a big clock on the screen. People should be already logged in the Moodle course, so they can upload the assignment there, as soon as the bell rings.

This exercise will give you a good and quick insight even in relatively big classes of what information ‘sticks’. You will also identify if there is a recurrent misunderstanding or misconception.

In case the class is not too big, you could also ask your students to submit the answers via the tool Mentimeter (https://www.mentimeter.com/) so that you can share all the (anonymous) answers on the big screen.

3) Stop-and-go lecture with peer feedback:

This type of feedback is useful for lecture formats. As a teacher you interrupt your lecture every 10 minutes to allow students to discuss in pairs for a few minutes.

Student pairs get in touch via video/audio call or in a chat. You need to give a very precise task: ‘Summarise in your own words what was the most important point of this part of the lecture’. Or ‘ Please discuss whether there was anything unclear for one or the other and try to explain to each other’. Students could also use social media tools to get in touch. Set up the pairs before the class and ask students to already get in touch with each other. In case your lecture takes place on Microsoft Teams for example, that would allow students to contact each other within the same platform very easily. But they could also start a private chat within a webinar software.

This podcast series is created by Annika Zorn, Director Digital Learning and PhD Programmes at the Hertie School. Annika is the founder of an online school (Florence online School of Regulation), trainer of early-career researchers in teaching at the higher education level and trainer of professional trainers. She is editor and author of the book "Higher Eduction in the Digital Age" with Jeff Haywood and Jean-Michel Glachant.

Host: Ashley Lauren Bamford-Kaemmereit

In Episode 2 of our Hertie School Online Education Training Series, we talk about why it is a good idea to pre-record your lecture (anyway).

+++ Tools and ideas in this podcast +++

Warm-up your voice before you start recording your lecture:

Many professional speakers use tongue twisters to do so. Find some examples here that warm up your voice and mouth for different sounds: https://www.ef.com/wwen/english-resources/tongue-twisters-english/

Recording a slide presentation:

PowerPoint has a powerful built-in recording tool. This video from Microsoft explains how it works: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/record-a-slide-show-with-narration-and-slide-timings-0b9502c6-5f6c-40ae-b1e7-e47d8741161c. One thing to remember is that you should only go forward through the slides, as if you go backwards any narration for the previous slide is overwritten. You should also pause from talking when changing slides as one second of audio will be lost.

Keynote is another option if you are a mac user and already have this software. This webpage from Apple will show you how.: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/keynote/tan8a5df9cc5/mac.=

Screen recording:

It could be that you need to include something that can’t be added to a slide, for example to show a coding application. In this case it could be possible to make a screen recording with voice over. It is important to remember that the whole of your screen will be recorded, so close any apps you are not using and personal email, consider that your desktop background may be seen and possibly disconnect from the internet to avoid any notifications popping up.

Screen recording comes included in a Mac, you will find instructions here.: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208721

For Windows users it is a little more complicated as you will need to install software. We suggest OBS Studio: https://obsproject.com/. This is fairly easy to use, here you will find a quick start guide and FAQs: https://obsproject.com/wiki/OBS-Studio-Quickstart

This podcast series is created by Annika Zorn, Director Digital Learning and PhD Programmes at the Hertie School. Annika is the founder of an online school (Florence online School of Regulation), trainer of early-career researchers in teaching at the higher education level and trainer of professional trainers. She is editor and author of the book "Higher Eduction in the Digital Age" with Jeff Haywood and Jean-Michel Glachant.

Host: Ashley Lauren Bamford-Kaemmereit

In Episode 1 of our Hertie School Online Education Training Series, we talk about why your first class online might be especially challenging.

+++ Tools and ideas in this podcast +++

Create a word cloud in your first class to see where people are connecting from and share it on the main screen. Two tools you can use to do that:

- PollEveryWhere: https://www.polleverywhere.com/word-cloud

- Answergarden: https://answergarden.ch/

This podcast series is created by Annika Zorn, Director Digital Learning and PhD Programmes at the Hertie School. Annika is the founder of the Florence Online School of Regulation, trainer of early-career researchers in teaching at the higher education level and trainer of professional trainers. She is editor and author of the book "Higher Eduction in the Digital Age" (links below) with Jeff Haywood and Jean-Michel Glachant (open-access chapters are also available).

Higher Eduction in the Digital Age (2018):

- Book: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781788970150/9781788970150.xml

- Open-access chapters: https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/59799

Host: Ashley Lauren Bamford-Kaemmereit

Estonian govt CIO Siim Sikkut and Gerhard Hammerschmid discuss Estonia’s digital transformation.

Siim Sikkut, the Republic of Estonia's Chief Information Officer and Gerhard Hammerschmid, Professor of Public and Financial Management and Director of the Hertie School Centre for Digital Governance discussed on 11 March what lessons Germany and other countries might draw from Estonia's digital transformation of its public administration. Their discussion is available as a podcast.

After a series of extensive reforms over the last decade, Estonia has become one of the most advanced digital societies in the world. Recently, Estonia also presented its vision of how public services should work digitally in the age of artificial intelligence.

Sikkut and Hammerschmid discussed the implementation of measures such as e-taxes and i-voting and the possibility that Estonia could act as a model or be a partner for other countries that want to become more efficient in providing public services to citizens.

The event was hosted by the Centre for Digital Governance and the TROPICO research project. It is part of the "Future of Government" event series. The series addresses transformative trends challenging governments around the globe and explores possible responses to bolster state capacity and legitimacy in ever more turbulent political environments.

Siim Sikkut is the Government CIO of Estonia, also titled as Deputy Secretary General for IT and Telecom at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications since March 2017. His role is to set the strategy and policies, to launch and steer strategic initiatives and regulation in areas of digital government and cybersecurity in Estonia. Siim is one of the founders of Estonia’s groundbreaking e-Residency programme. He was nominated as one of world’s TOP20 most influential people in digital government by Apolitical in 2018 and 2019. Siim is also the chair of OECD Working Party of Senior Digital Government Officials.

Gerhard Hammerschmid is Professor of Public and Financial Management and Director of the Centre for Digital Governance at the Hertie School. His research focuses on public management reform, comparative public administration, public sector performance management and personnel management. He is a partner of the EU-funded research project TROPICO on public sector innovation and digital government transformation.