Funding Enables Freedom to Innovatively Teach at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
The non-profit »Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre« foundation regularly provides funding for future-oriented university teaching projects. Prizes are awarded for exciting teaching approaches that demonstrate strong potential for innovation. Three teaching projects at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar were awarded funding in the latest round. These projects can now use the funding to implement their own innovative ideas for university teaching starting on 1 April:
Faculty of Art and Design
»Strategien für Nicht-Maschinen«
Prof. Ursula Damm, Prof. Dr. Henning Schmidgen (Faculty of Media), Prof. Dr. Frank Eckardt (Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism)
Humans invented computers to be used as tools. These tools, however, have developed far beyond what could have been imagined. We now have, for example, machines that create new machines and computer-generated texts. These developments clash with »non-machines«, that is to say processes, living beings and environments that have not yet been generated into the machine network.
The project team is relying on an artistic-scientific approach with participatory elements. They have planned for joint teaching and learning between students and instructors. Student exhibitions and a publication project which presents new strategies, tools and techniques in contemporary media art are also being organised. The programme is intended to help students better understand the relationships and dependencies between machines and non-machines and to expand their individual artistic practices based on this. With the support of instructors, students become experts and mediators of the lessons in the so-called »Flipped Classroom«. Students learn interactive strategies, conceptualised artistic projects, familiarise themselves with BioArt and investigate the ethical issues that accompany working with living beings. In the process, they combine approaches from the fields of art and biology and carry out their work in the DIY Biolab and DIY Electronics Lab, among other spaces. Nearly 400,000 euros have been made available for the project
Faculty of Art and Design
»IrreguLab – Transdisziplinäres und interfakultatives Lehrlabor für das digitale Entwerfen und Herstellen mit unregelmäßigen Materialien«
Jr.-Prof. Dr. Thomas Pearce, M.Sc. Lukas Kirschnick (Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism), Prof. Dr. Jan Willmann
Nearly 390,000 euro have been allocated for the »IrreguLab«, an interfaculty and transdisciplinary teaching and learning lab. The goal of the »IrreguLab« is to address one of the most pressing challenges of our time: the depletion of essential resources. The project is developing innovative approaches that tap into previously unused material supplies. One example of this is the project’s focus on raw material that is abundantly available in Thuringia, the federal state with the largest timber harvest - irregularly grown waste wood. Architecture and Produktdesign (Product Design) students, along with students from other programmes, are currently developing strategies and methods for processing and using this wood. Students will be using digital tools and processes, such as 3D scanning, digital data processing and CNC-controlled and augmented reality-supported fabrication, for this purpose. This means that otherwise unused raw materials can be processed accurately and efficiently, resulting in innovative, material-friendly and, most importantly, sustainable design and manufacturing techniques. The project offers innovative teaching and learning formats, such as augmented reality design build workshops and installations and will include scientific transfer and exchange formats. This provides students with the opportunity to network with local and regional professionals from the forestry, timber and craft industries and to share their visions with a wider audience.
Institutional Development
»Leerraum oder was braucht es zum Lernen? – Ko-kreative Gestaltung von fluiden Lehr-/Lernräumen«
Institutional Development Team
How can spaces, including their designs and furnishings, contribute to successful learning? And how can rooms –both conceptually and experimentally– rid themselves of their rigid and bulky furnishings that hinder teaching and learning? Numerous rooms at the University are still geared towards frontal teaching styles. They are very limited as locations to test out an use contemporary teaching formats. Model learning spaces that respond creatively, boldly and with the greatest possible flexibility are being developed in experimental processes with, and according to the needs of, students and instructors at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Project participants hope to identify didactic and aesthetic criteria through interviews and workshops and link these with findings from similar projects at other universities. The rooms will be developed co-creatively: The relevant equipment will be conceptualised, designed and tested in various join teaching and learning scenarios and under real-life conditions.
The University’s Institutional Development is looking forward to representatives from all four faculties participating in the project. Those interested should contact Dr. Andreas Mai. Nearly 422,000 euros will be made available over the next two years to promote the development of teaching and learning spaces at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
About »Freiraum 2023«
The »Freiraum« project received nearly 50million euros in funding; a total of174 projects received funding. These projects were very diverse: Explanatory videos by students for students; projects on digitally curating art; diversity-sensitive teaching in chemistry; projects on working with AI; sustainability-focussed projects and projects based on experiences during the pandemic and how they can be innovatively implemented in teaching. Ideas for sustainable design and manufacturing approaches with wood and new approaches to noise protection in urban development also received funding.
The »Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre« has been supporting innovative teaching and learning in Germany since 2021. The foundation funds projects at individual universities as well as joint projects. The foundation also provides networking opportunities for teaching design projects, strengthens knowledge transfer and promotes the exchange of project results, successes and challenges. The funding for this new academic institution is provided by the federal and state governments.
»Freiraum« extends a periodical call for proposals. The project selection committee selects projects at regular intervals: https://stiftung-hochschullehre.de/foerderung/freiraum
Kontakt
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Claudia Weinreich
Pressesprecherin
Tel.: +49(0)3643/58 11 73
Luise Ziegler
Mitarbeiterin Medienarbeit
Tel.: +49(0)3643/58 11 80
Fax: +49(0)3643/58 11 72
E-Mail: presse[at]uni-weimar.de
Web: www.uni-weimar.de/medienservice