LMU Teaching Innovation Award 2023
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In July, Prof. Dr. Birgit J. Neuhaus, Prof. Dr. Bärbel Otto, Marius Eckert, and Alexander Benz (joint project of the Faculty of Biology and the Faculty of Medicine) were awarded the LMU Teaching Innovation Prize, which is presented as part of the Lehre@LMU program.
The LMU Teaching Innovation Award recognizes teachers who develop and implement innovative teaching concepts, such as the joint project "Online and face-to-face training of teacher-parent discussions with standardized actors in biology teacher training," which aims to close an important gap in biology teacher training.
Similar to the encounter scenarios used in medical student training to prepare them for doctor-patient consultations, the project offers concepts for optimal communication in teacher-parent consultations as well as practical training.
In a realistic simulation of such encounters, students take on the role of teachers, while actors play the part of parents. Following the introduction of this methodologically diverse communication training program in the Faculty of Biology, further steps are planned to make the model transferable to other teacher training courses. Learning communication strategies and practicing them in real life are key to dealing with and solving conflicts in teachers' everyday work.
https://www.lmu.de/de/die-lmu/die-lmu-auf-einen-blick/auszeichnungen/lehrpreise/index.html
GEBF Award for the Promotion of Interdisciplinarity in Educational Research - 2023
In March 2023, the COSIMA Research Group, Didactics of Biology, together with the DGF Research Group FOR 2385, was awarded the GEBF Prize for promoting interdisciplinarity in educational research.
LMU Teaching Innovation Award 2018
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In December 2018, Franziska Behling and Dr. Christian Förtsch were awarded the LMU Teaching Innovation Prize, which is presented as part of the Lehre@LMU program.
The LMU Teaching Innovation Award recognizes teachers who develop and implement innovative teaching concepts, such as the "Practical Seminar in Biology Teaching."
Franziska Behling and Dr. Christian Förtsch have developed a seminar that provides practical training in teaching biology at secondary schools. The newly designed seminar focuses primarily on making specific teaching situations tangible and manageable. The big advantage for students is that they can immediately apply, reflect on, and evaluate the knowledge they have learned and been taught in theory in biology didactics. In contrast to the familiar school internships, this type of practice-oriented course allows students to combine their school experience with the findings of the latest empirical research. In this respect, it is particularly important that students receive intensive support from the lecturer as they alternate between theory and practice. Students plan and conduct their teaching unit, which is no longer limited to a single session but covers a complete unit of knowledge, independently but under supervision. This new type of course thus guarantees optimal preparation for everyday school life.
https://www.lmu.de/de/die-lmu/die-lmu-auf-einen-blick/auszeichnungen/lehrpreise/index.html
Award for outstanding state examination theses
In an atmospheric ceremony, teacher training students Stefanie Aigner and Stefanie Miller were honored along with others for outstanding state examination theses. This award recognizes theses that stand out for their exceptional academic standard and practical significance for schools. In their admission thesis on biology teaching, the two students succeeded in building a bridge between biology teaching research and school practice in a very sophisticated way.
The students developed a successful example of competence-oriented teaching aligned with educational standards. During a field trip to the forest lasting several hours, a wealth of measurements were taken using various methods from the competence area of knowledge acquisition, which were then evaluated on site as a first step. The data collected by the students, together with their conclusions, were used in the following lessons to derive and present essential basic ecological concepts and interrelationships. In addition, competence-oriented theoretical tasks were used to deepen the content in a manner consistent with educational standards.
In this way, the didactic focus shifted from the pure transfer of knowledge to the promotion of much-cited technical skills, in particular knowledge acquisition and communication. Although this has often been called for in the past, it is still rarely implemented effectively in practice. With their work, Ms. Aigner and Ms. Miller have demonstrated what contemporary teaching and learning at school could look like.
The Institute for Biology Education would also like to extend its warmest congratulations and wish you, Ms. Aigner and Ms. Miller, every success for the future.
Commitment to teaching – Teaching Award 2010
Dear students,
Thank you very much for awarding me the 2010 Teaching Prize for outstanding commitment to teaching teacher training students, which I am delighted to accept on behalf of myself and my colleagues.
I am delighted that, despite all the inconveniences associated with the launch of modularization for teacher training, we have succeeded in conveying the message that we are committed to providing future teachers with a dedicated, theoretically sound, and practice-oriented education.
That is why we see this award as recognition for the past and a commitment for the future.
Yours
Prof. Dr. Birgit Neuhaus