The innovation fund for students on the topic of practical teaching as well as participation and involvement to implement the Learning and Teaching mission statement was successfully implemented in 2024. The focus topics in 2024 were Practice-oriented teaching and student participation and involvement.
In the winter semester 2024/25, the Innovation Fund gave a total of six student initiatives the opportunity to implement their projects on the topics of practical teaching and student involvement and participation. The projects dealt with various topics such as implementing diversity and anti-discrimination work, education for sustainable development, confronting anti-Semitism and developing self-empowering educational processes, dealing with and protecting against right-wing extremism in Marzahn-Hellersdorf, developing awareness structures in learning spaces and developing innovative approaches in university didactics from a student perspective.
As part of their projects, the students tested and developed different approaches to promoting student participation. They worked with participatory formats in project development and implementation, e.g. in world cafés, moderated group discussions, workshops and focus groups. As part of the projects, they offered spaces for exchange and realized self-empowering educational offers, created podcasts and developed concepts or contributed to them.
In the following, three of these groups share exemplary insights into their project work...
Childhood education the podcast
A project by Rita Jorra and Stephan Köster
Jingle: (Sound and background music for an audio.)
Welcome to our first podcast episode today.
My name is Rita Jorra and I am a childhood educator studying Education for Sustainable Development. My passion is recording, designing and editing podcasts. During my studies, I was able to benefit a lot from the podcast format. Science communication and inclusion are close to my heart. How can we make important and relevant topics in childhood education as low-threshold and accessible as possible for everyone? Could the podcast format be a door opener for the practice of childhood education and civil society? Statistically speaking, people are increasingly carrying mobile data carriers such as cell phones or tablets with them. Podcasts could be the first step towards digitalization in the field of childhood education.
This gave rise to the idea:
To create a podcast for childhood education.
We recorded various podcast episodes together with students as part of the "Profile Building and Marketing" seminar on the Childhood Education course.
The various topics were designed and prepared by different groups of students.
Some topics required thorough preparation at a theoretical level and offer a wide range of possibilities for presentation in podcast format.
The resulting podcast episodes have been available online since May 2025.
Awareness structures in learning spaces
Awareness group KriDiCo summer semester 2024
We are a group of students who have been working on a voluntary basis since May 2024 to set up and implement awareness structures in learning spaces of the Master's program "Critical Diversity and Community Studies". Our group process arose from the repeated experience that discriminatory (language) acts within the seminar context often lead to excessive demands, silence or accusations of guilt and result in those affected having to demand space to speak and take responsibility themselves. Accordingly, it is important to us to train ourselves in awareness work, which we see as both preventative and active action.
Thanks to the financial resources of the Innovation Fund, we were able to obtain professional support in the development of a semester-spanning concept as well as in terms of practical awareness-raising. We hope to be able to continue our process as multipliers and want to engage in an exchange with students during the introductory days of the new semester.
Practice meets university:
How the "PraxisCampus" brings practice into the university and the university into practice - a utopia of university policy students at ASH Berlin
Responsible: The student parliament 2024/2025
In WorldCafés, exchange rounds and internal workshops, we, the StuPa 2024/2025, have collected ideas on the compatibility of studying, care work and career and described them as if all this had already taken place.
At ASH Berlin, students have been combining theory with commitment since summer semester 2024. With the "PraxisCampus - Networked Thinking in Social Work" project, the university is taking a new approach: students spend a semester working closely with social institutions, initiatives and neighborhood projects - as an active part of their studies.
The aim of the project is to identify current challenges together with practitioners and develop creative solutions.
The project kicked off with a "Mix&Match Exchange" in the Audimax, where ASH Berlin sponsors and projects introduced themselves. This led to the formation of teams of students, lecturers and sponsors who developed their own concepts. The practical phase replaces the practical semester.
The projects were presented to the public in fall 2025. In recognition, the participants received a certificate for civic engagement - a visible sign of social responsibility. "PraxisCampus" will be included in the curriculum from 2025 - and makes it clear: university moves when it goes out and practice comes in.
Authors:
Urte Böhm, Quality Management and Development in Studies and Teaching (QME SuL)
with students from the Innovation Fund projects
