What makes for an outstanding idea in the world of teaching? How can teachers inspire each other? And are there new interior space designs that can help support great teaching? These questions were at the center of the university’s annual Teaching Award ceremony and subsequent Teaching Forum event, which took place last week.
28 Nominations for the Teaching Award 2024
This year, a total of 28 classes across a wide range of study areas at the university were nominated for the Teaching Award. The prize, worth €3000, was awarded at a ceremony held at the WAAS.sche Fabrik on October 10. The nominees were selected and evaluated by a jury comprising students and teachers. After a series of ‘speed pitches’, the following nominees were honored:
- Professor Katrin Kahlen and Matthew Suomi, for their ‘Mathematics' lecture in the Horticulture B.Sc. degree program
- Professor Alexander von Birgelen for his 'Greening urban spaces' seminar in the Landscape Architecture and Landscape Planning M.Sc. degree program
- Professor Marianne Darbi for her 'Debating current planning issues' seminar in the Landscape Architecture and Landscape Planning M.Sc. degree program
The university’s Vice-President for Student and Academic Affairs, Professor Mirjam Hey, warmly congratulated all the winners and nominees, and thanked them for their commitment.
Teaching Forum: Room(s) for Thought
This year’s Teaching Forum, held on campus the day after the Teaching Award ceremony, focused on an equally exciting topic, namely the question of new, contemporary room concepts for supporting teaching and learning.
Around 80 colleagues attended a keynote lecture on ‘Innovative Teaching and Competency-Oriented Spaces at Universities’, which was held by Professor Mareike Heinzen from Koblenz University of Applied Sciences and highlighted fascinating research on the impact of innovative learning spaces for effective teaching. The lecture explored the importance of learning environments that not only serve the teacher in imparting knowledge but can also be adapted to their current teaching concept through the set-up of the room. A flexible and collaborative space like the one described by Professor Heinzen is already being built at Hochschule Geisenheim University: the CoLAB, a multi-functional learning laboratory, is set to open in February 2025.
During the subsequent campus tour, teachers had the chance to share ideas and get inspired by their colleagues’ teaching approaches and creative problem-solving. The variety of ideas on display served as an impressive demonstration of how specialist and interdisciplinary skills have been successfully integrated into classes at the university. During the tour, Maren Stollberg presented solutions for greening the library building, which had been developed together with Geisenheim students, and Thomas Muschkullus demonstrated ‘Projektopia’, a boardgame he created for his class that playfully teaches students interdisciplinary skills, such as collaboration, team building, and self-reflection. Emma Gledhill-Schmitt also spoke on the Business and Technical English module, which was one of the pilot modules for the new competency model at Hochschule Geisenheim University. Georg Ardissonne-Kraus then reported on how he incorporates practical elements when teaching students about the topic of composting.
The program for the Teaching Forum was finished off with a practice-oriented skills workshop, during which teachers could use the inspiration they gained on the tour to further develop their own teaching approach.
A gallery of photos from both days of the event is available below (photo credit: Stieffenhofer/Günter/Hochschule Geisenheim University).
