The DAAD project Teaching Internationally has organized a Project Summer School on the subject of Opportunities and challenges of digitisation in international teacher training.
The Summer School took place on site in Greifswald in August 2023 (28 August to 01 September 2023).
The coronavirus pandemic caused the temporary closure of schools and universities in 2020. Learning and teaching in person was no longer possible and new ways and methods of knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer had to be found and implemented. While digitisation experienced a big impetus, it revealed the opportunities, but also the challenges that came with this process.
With a mixture of lectures and workshops, the Summer School shed light on different approaches regarding how the advantages of digitisation are being used to prepare students training to become teachers for their future work life. Various representatives from all partner universities belonging to the project presented topics ranging from digital or hybrid learning over gamification and game-based learning to language acquisition and digitisation.
Programme
Lectures and Workshops during the Summer School:
Monday, 28 August 2023
Venue: Conference Hall at the University Main Building, Domstraße 11, Entrance 2.
9.00 a.m. – 9.25 a.m.
Opening
Dorthe G. A. Hartmann - Vice-Rector
Thomas Jenssen - Manager of the Office of the Rector and Project Leader
9.30 a.m. – 10.15 a.m.
Learning for the future - how digitalization is changing teacher training
JProf. Dr. Ines Sura (Greifswald)
10.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.
Introduction round
Introduction of all participants from the Teaching Internationally network
11.00 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
Poster lunch
Presentation of different projects
12.00 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.
Lunch break
1.30 p.m. – 2.45 p.m.
Digital Citizenship
Dr. Ireta Čekse (Riga)
3.00 p.m. – 4.30 p.m.
Making presence felt in the online world
Dr. Sapna Thwaite & Dr. Jeramy Donovan (Flint (Michigan))
Building a sense of connection with students is a central endeavor for university faculty in an online space. Instructor presence is often linked to deeper student engagement, academic achievement, and retention. Furthermore, it promotes a sense of belonging in a learning community particularly when there are shared goals and values. In our interactive workshop, we will collectively discuss what we mean by “instructor presence” and why we believe that it matters in an online space. We will describe various examples of instructor presence from our own online classrooms as well as those of our colleagues in the Education Department at UM-Flint. Lastly, we will engage our audience in a short, interactive activity to explore the topics of the workshop in a manner that is relevant to them and their respective context.
6 p.m.
Get together
Tuesday 29 August 2023
8.30 a.m. – 10.00 a.m.
Changemaker - Paving the way for a digital classroom of the future
Anna-Maria Bayer, Janita Schütz (Greifswald)
Get to know the „Klassenzimmer der Zukunft“ (future classroom) at the University in Greifswald. We will introduce you to the concept behind it, the rooms itself and will try out several digital methods and devices.
As part of the special program „Digitalisierung in der Lehrer*innenbildung“ (digitalization in teacher training), sustainable teaching and learning spaces „Klassenzimmer der Zukunft“ (future classroom) are being designed at the University of Greifswald in all three teacher training faculties. These rooms want to enable an interdisciplinary, flexible and multifunctional use of space for the training of student teachers. They want to offer teachers and students alike the opportunity to explore different methodical teaching scenarios and digital possibilities in order to prepare them for everyday working life in a digitalized world.
10.30 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
Collecting, organizing, sharing - working collaboratively via Digital Pinboards
Dr. Jana Kiesendahl, Anke Clausen (Greifswald)
12.00 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.
Lunch break
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.
Challenges and benefits encountered by teachers and students in digitalized and online learning/teaching encounters
Dr. George Cramona (Valetta)
This interactive workshop intends to focus mainly on the challenges and benefits experienced during a thriving educational online exchange between classes in Malta (Europe) and classes in Bataan (Philippines – Asia). This online exchange includes very regular online lessons, online teacher training sessions, as well as the required online preparatory meetings between the school administrators.
Throughout the session, the participants of the Summer School will be involved directly and actively through hands-on multimodal activities through which, while listening to the experience of the protagonists of this Maltese – Filipino experience, they too share their experiences of their own online educational encounters.
Towards the end of the session, based on the direct active input of the participants, 10 practical tips will be formulated. These tips are intended to serve as proactive encouraging tools, through which when participating in future online learning/teaching encounters, participants may feel more informed and empowered and therefore gradually become more effectively motivated online educators.
3.15 p.m. – 4.30 p.m.
Technology in Teaching at Universities - Policies and Practices
Nguyen Thi Lan Huong (Hanoi)
The objective of the workshop is to explore the correlation between policies and practices concerning the implementation of technology in teaching within tertiary institutions. By engaging in reflective activities, participants will have the opportunity to exchange both successful and challenging experiences from their respective institutions. Towards the conclusion of the workshop, a case study involving a Vietnamese university will also be presented.
4.45 p.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Guided University tour
Wednesday, 30 August 2023
9.00 a.m. – 10.15 a.m.
Save the game - game based learning and gamification in education
JProf. Dr. Ines Sura (Greifswald)
10.30 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
The Pedagogy of Escape Rooms
Ville Tahvanainen (Joensuu)
The lecture introduces the pedagogy of escape games as well as easy practical implementations for physical and virtual environments. The participants get to play a short virtual model game and consider the applicability of the method to their own teaching content on sustainability themes.
The trainer is a teacher trainer Ville Tahvanainen, a project researcher working at the University of Eastern Finland, who has, among other things, been designing the globally unique Sm4rt LOC escape game laboratory, held numerous trainings and workshops on the topic and conducted research on the topic. As a teacher trainer, he has developed a pedagogical teaching method in several different projects. He was nominated as a UEF - Excellent Teaching Practioner in 2022 by implementing escape game pedagogy in various context.
12.00 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.
Lunch break
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.
Games, learning, and teaching: Creating exciting learning opportunities
Emanuel Nestler (Rostock)
3.15 p.m. – 4.30 p.m.
Playing Pope: Using Game-Based Learning to Teach Literary Texts
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Domsch, Christopher Wettke, Niklas Washausen, Henning Toska (Greifswald)
4.45 p.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Guided city tour – Stories of the Night Watchman
Thursday, 31 August 2023
9.00 a.m. – 10.15 a.m.
Foreign language learning in Online Tandems and Educational Settings
Dr. Agnieszka Putzier, Dr. Grzegorz Lisek (Greifswald)
10.30 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
Review, design and present an unlimited world - using a digital game to enhance communicative, pragmatic and media literacy skills in the EFL classroom at school
Dr. Margitta Kuty, Niklas Washausen (Greifswald)
12.00 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.
Lunch break
1.30 p.m. – 2.45 p.m.
Meeting students' individual needs in teacher education - opportunities and challenges of using ePortofolios
Dr. Margitta Kuty, Rene Dannehl (Greifswald)
3.30 p.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Boat trip with MS Stubnitz on the Ryck river and the Greifswalder Bodden
Friday, 1 September 2023
9.00 a.m. – 10.20 a.m.
Legal Aspect of Digitization in University Teaching
Prof. Dr. Achim Förster (Würzburg)
10.30 a.m. – 12.30 p.m.
Conclusion session