Having ownership: students shape teaching at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development

The practice
The module ‘Methods and Concepts of Sustainable Development’, developed at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE) and awarded the Brandenburg State Teaching Prize for Future Skills, demonstrates how student participation can be successfully achieved. As part of the module, Master’s students develop transdisciplinary micro-projects on which all HNEE Bachelor’s students work in small interdisciplinary groups during a university-wide introductory course on sustainable development. The Master’s students support the Bachelor’s students throughout the learning process and act as mentors. The teaching approach is a competence-oriented and is situated within the context of higher education for sustainable development.

The module will continue to be developed and will be managed almost entirely by master’s students. Master’s students who have already finished the module teach other master’s students, who in turn will serve as mentors for bachelor’s students.

The landscape pressures it speaks to
The model addresses two of the pressures identified. Scepticism ( ⇓ ) about higher education’s relevance is countered by giving students responsibility for their individual learning process and enabling them to take responsibility for other students as a mentor. And the crisis of democracy ( ⇓ ) is addressed on a small scale through the delegation of responsibility for learning processes within the community and the associated negotiation processes. It changes the hierarchies and power dynamics between teachers and students. The crack in the regime practice it exposes is the dominance of teacher-centred teaching ( ◊ ), which does not adequately take into account the skills and experiences of diverse and qualified students.

From niche to regime
To lift this format from the niche status to the regime, targeted efforts are needed in the following areas:

• Anchoring ( ⇑ ): teaching regulations allow students to act as teachers under certain circumstances. This is currently still subject to a case-by-case review and should be expanded further.
• Coalition-building ( ⇑ ): structures should be co-developed with students, teaching-development units (graduate schools) and quality-enhancement offices. They are key partners in fostering the co-design of teaching practices, living labs and play an important role in co-designing curricula as learning journey.
• Aggregation ( ⇑ ): At HNEE, there are several teaching formats that have been significantly designed and implemented by students (“Projektwerkstätten”, methodological mentoring in university-wide introductory course on sustainable development, service learning). These need to be made more visible and structured for the university community so that everyone can benefit from them. An award or prize could serve as a strong argument in this regard.