Award winners test and implement innovative concepts
In order to support the commitment of teaching staff and highlight the quality of teaching at Paderborn University, the Executive Board of the university awards an annual prize for innovation and quality improvement in teaching. The teaching prize for young academics is also awarded annually by the Presidium and recognises teaching concepts and methods that are outstanding and exemplary in nature. This year's winners have now been announced.
Award for Innovation and Quality Improvement in Teaching
Three projects are being awarded the prize for innovation and quality improvement in teaching. Prof. Dr. Dennis Kundisch receives the prize for the project “Student AI Skills in Economics”. The project creates an innovative additional offering that is aimed in particular at first-year Bachelor's students in the Faculty of Economics. The aim is to establish basic skills for the meaningful, systematic, and ethical use of generative artificial intelligence.
Dr. Carolin Waltert, Dr. Nicole Satzinger and Prof. Dr. Miriam Kehne are being honoured for the project “Education through Movement – Changing Teaching Relationships to Shape Innovation in Teaching”. The overarching goal is to implement physical movement more strongly in university teaching and to break down traditional teaching and learning situations. Specifically, the focus is on the participatory design of a movement-oriented “pilot seminar room”.
In addition, Dr. Max Hoffmann and Prof. Dr. Lena Wessel will receive an award for their project “ProM@IK-KI – Professionalisation of mathematics teacher training students in the field of IT skills through the use of AI”. They are focusing on the mathematics-specific digital expertise of future mathematics teachers and the requirement that they must be able to reflectively select, adapt or create digital learning environments themselves. A total of four learning arrangements are to be developed.
Teaching Award for Young Academics
Maike Althaus and Lea Biere receive the teaching award for the seminar “AI and Conversational Agents: An Interdisciplinary Practical Project” and the project seminar “Conversational Agents: Business Informatics and Sociology in Dialogue.” This interdisciplinary, collaborative project enabled students to work together across faculties. Business informatics students deepened their knowledge of AI system development, while cultural studies students learned how to prepare scientific content for technical applications and evaluate it critically.
Yvonne Webersen from physics education and Pascal Pollmeier from chemistry education also received an award for their interdisciplinary course “From the greenhouse effect to fuel cells: tomorrow's energy supply”. The seminar, which included experimental and practical components, was designed for primary school teacher training students studying general science and offered them the opportunity to explore the topic of “tomorrow's energy supply”. The scientific principles behind various technologies were examined from the perspectives of physics and chemistry.
In addition, the teaching award will be presented to Jonas Spieker for the seminar “What should we dream of? Music in political movements and struggles – a podcast seminar in the summer semester of 2025”. Students from the University of Paderborn and the Detmold University of Music developed a podcast series on the complex relationship between music and political activism. Seminar participants learned all the basics necessary for producing a podcast episode – from audio production and journalistic research to interview techniques and dramaturgical design.
"With theAward for Innovation and Quality Improvement in Teaching and the Teaching Award for Young Academics, we are focusing specifically on promoting and recognising excellence in teaching. It is important to us to highlight the commitment of our teaching staff and to strengthen a culture of continuous quality development in teaching. This year's award winners impressively demonstrate how innovative and high-quality teaching is practised with commitment and passion at Paderborn University," says Prof. Dr. Beate Flath, Vice-President for Teaching, Studies and Quality Management.
This text was translated automatically.
