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Prof Dr Marco Rieckmann and Lisa Bockwoldt, CASE team members from the University of Vechta, Germany*, presented the European multi-stakeholder process of developing the CASE master program at the international conference “Internationalization of the Curricula” at the University of Göttingen, Germany.

They emphazised the importance of a strong knowledge alliance with diverse stakeholders: multidisciplinary students, teachers, researchers, university staff, and praxis partners from sustainability-driven enterprises, NGOs, and the public sector.

The collaboration is not only important for the successful development of a master program in which students learn to tackle challenges for sustainable development. But the alliance is also important for the actual teaching and learning in the master program.

In diverse cooperation formats (see the CASE pilot projects), students can learn in transdisciplinary settings and learn to solve real-life problems together with the partners.

Among the conference contributions, the CASE approach to jointly develop a master program with different European partners from universities and businesses was quite unique and innovative.

 

* Both on the picture above (photo by Magnus Frampton, University of Vechta).

CASE presented at the Long Night of Research at the Free University of Bolzano

Friday, 30 September 2016, from 5 p.m. to midnight

When looking at the present crises that have been causing havoc with mankind, one comes to realize that our world will be different in the future. What we need is a broader, more open-minded perspective that enables us to peer beyond the boundaries of our habitual ways of doing things, our specialized disciplines and our conventional ideologies, and that can also visualize the pluralism and the inherent contradictions of our modern, globally-networked world.

This year’s edition of the Long Night of Research (LUNA) showed that in times of political and economic crises scientists can provide this “big picture” – a broader point of view gained through networking with colleagues across the EU and based on their knowledge and the results of their research. People learned that scientists can help them understand what is happening in the world and that their research aims to provide concrete solutions to confront the manifestations of global problems in our region.

Susanne Elsen and Claudia Lintner, CASE team members from the Free University of Bolzano, informed visitors about CASE, its goals, current developments, and the next steps of the project.

Evaluation and quality assurance are important parts of the CASE project. On 15 and 16 September 2016, the results of the CASE evaluation and quality assurance analysis were presented by Jan Činčera, CASE team member from Masaryk University Brno, at the 24^th Annual Conference of the Czech Association of Educational Research in České Budějovice, Czech Republic.

In his presentation called “Designing New Curricula as a Social Learning Process”, Jan discussed what factors have been important for supporting the learning processes in the CASE consortium. Specifically, the importance of using facilitation strategies, supporting group dynamics, and processing the learning experience were highlighted.

The process of meeting with all the partners and sharing the perspectives on a new Joint Master Program offers a great opportunity for social learning. However, social learning can also be a difficult process when a group needs to invent its own best strategy for communication and cooperation. This is what was focused on in the analysis during the first part of the project in 2015-2016.

Furthermore, it was discussed what implications the CASE experiences may have for other teams designing sustainability-driven curricula at their universities. On the basis of the findings, it was recommended that curriculum designers should not ignore the necessity to create a supportive social environment in which all partners are aware of and share their goals. Group dynamics is a natural part of any cooperation and thus it should be properly facilitated. Last but not least, the processing of the ongoing experience is a crucial element that helps transforming the experience into learning.

Professor Marco Rieckmann, CASE team member from the University of Vechta, Germany, took the opportunity and gave presentations of CASE and its results at the European Conference on Educational Research in Dublin, Ireland, at the end of August and at the summer school “Transformative Research and Development in Urban and Regional Environments“ at the Free University of Bozen, Italy, in early September.
In Dublin, Professor Rieckmann informed the conference participants about innovative approaches and methods of teaching and learning in higher education for sustainable development and entrepreneurship. At the summer school in South Tyrol, he spoke about higher education for sustainable development and the role of universities in transformative science.
Both occasions acted as multipliers for the CASE activities on innovative methods of teaching and learning (Work Package 4 of the project) and prepared the ground for the upcoming pilot projects under CASE to be implemented this year in all five participating regions (Work Package 6).
Professor Rieckmann’s presentations can be found in the section “Presentations“ of the rubric „Workshops and Presentations“ in the sub-site „Results“.

Façade greening, apple cider, CO2-reduction – the students of the 7th Sustainability Challenge presented their concepts at the public Stop-Over event on June 29^th. Impressive short videos of the projects and start-ups were succeeded by a market place with vivid discussions.

Within this interdisciplinary course, students tackle challenges in cooperation with partners or as start-up teams. The first task was to develop a concept for the service learning projects respectively a business model for the start-up ideas.

 

The intermediary Stop-Over event facilitated exchange, feedback and learning from each other. During the second term the teams will focus on implementation of the projects, prototyping their business concepts and writing business plans.

To support a holistic approach for developing sustainable solutions, theoretic input was provided by lecturers from the participating four universities.

 

 

For the first time, the course integrates start-ups and is extended to two semesters. The testing of these enhancements and their implication constitute the core of piloting the Sustainability Challenge in the context of CASE.

 

 

Read more about the Stop-Over event (in German).

More information about the Sustainability Challenge.