Is there a need for teaching faculty in Germany?

In the United States and several other countries, it is common practice that introductory lectures are being held by teaching faculty, i.e., lecturers and teaching professors. In physics departments, this includes classes such as "Introduction to Experimental Physics" (classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, thermodynamics, optics). Higher-level classes as well as electives, however, are often taught by "regular" faculty who only devote a certain fraction of their working hours to teaching while also being involved in research and service activities. By contrast, in Germany also the introductory classes are taught by the aforementioned "regular" professors, and typically no additional teaching faculty are hired by the universities. Obviously, there are advantages and disadvantages to each of these two distinct approaches. For example, hiring teaching faculty leads to additional costs for the university, but on the other hand one might argue that, on average, their higher enthusiasm for teaching and the fact that they solely focus on their classes leads to a greater success in the students' learning experience. Unlike "regular" professors who may regard teaching as an obligation, teaching faculty usually have a strong passion for teaching and do not have many other duties that would distract them from preparing their classes. 

Hiring teaching assistants for an introductory physics class

After interviewing a few candidates for teaching assistant (TA) positions within the framework of our introductory experimental physics (classical mechanics and thermodynamics) class for freshmen this week, I have had some new thoughts on teaching and learning physics in higher education, especially with regard to TAs and their significance. In the following, I will discuss some of these thoughts.