Minister's Visit: New Impetus for the Further Development of Teacher Education Programs
Engaging, practice-oriented, and grounded in scientific research: These are the standards for the curricular development of teacher education programs at RPTU. To incorporate diverse perspectives and experiences into the process, the Center for Teacher Education has been conducting an internal workshop series since 2024. On the occasion of the fourth session in this series, Sven Teuber, Minister of Education for Rhineland-Palatinate, gained an overview of the RPTU’s already highly diverse teaching and learning concepts—in part through a poster exhibition.
Students, research assistants, and professors: all are called upon to contribute their diverse perspectives, experiences, and roles to the further development of the teacher education programs at RPTU. The goal is to develop a strategic concept through a series of workshops, on the basis of which teaching can continue to be offered in a contemporary and high-quality manner in the future. Various questions and aspects are the focus here: How can teacher education be research-based and reflective? How can we address the issues of internationalization, heterogeneity, and inclusion? What roles do Digitalization and AI play? And how can we integrate subject-specific disciplines, educational sciences, and subject-specific didactics in all of this?
The fourth session of the workshop series—on November 21—was accompanied by a poster exhibition: This impressively demonstrated that there is no shortage of activities and concepts at RPTU. For example, there are a wide variety of projects in which student teachers learn, teach, and sometimes even participate in research. Sven Teuber, Minister of Education for Rhineland-Palatinate, learned in conversations with the poster presenters, for example, how to promote anti-Semitism prevention and democracy education in elementary school; how geographic information systems can be used as practical teaching approaches; How video-based learning enhances professional knowledge. How children in the early school years can receive more individualized support. And that the ExperiMINT bus is a kind of mobile laboratory that pulls up in the schoolyard and promotes science subjects through interactive activities.
A presentation by Birgit Lütje-Klose, professor of school inclusion and special education professionalism at Bielefeld University, rounded out the day’s program. Afterward, small groups continued to engage in intensive discussions about the next steps in the strategic plan. The discussions made it clear that the further development of teacher education programs at RPTU must be driven by strong internal momentum and a committed exchange of ideas. Everyone involved in teacher education is still invited to contribute.