Adapting university curricula to changing social challenges in the sense of a future-oriented design of studies and teaching (Wissenschaftsrat 2022) is a central task for universities. Against the background of the shortage of skilled workers, transformations in the living environments of users and in the social, educational and health professions , as well as in view of falling student numbers and high student occupations, the focus is shifting to cooperative curriculum development and questions of practice-oriented teaching.
What is cooperative curriculum development?
Universities are involved in creating social infrastructures and "social achievements" such as professions, organizations, concepts and qualities of cooperation. To this end, they develop curricula, academic content and structures as well as a corresponding teaching and examination culture.
Cooperative curriculum development means that curricula are developed in exchange within the faculty, with students and external practice partners in order to meet the changing needs of society. One element of this is the question of how practice-oriented skills can be taught and acquired.
Embedding, measures and results
To this end, ASH Berlin developed a project on practice-oriented teaching. It was implemented in 2024 and 2025 in cooperation with the Sage SAGE! project and the Quality Management and Development Department (QME SuL) as a contribution to the implementation of the Learning and Teaching Mission Statement. Following a survey of the patterns of practice-oriented teaching (see below), the project was embedded in the Stifterverband's transfer audit and thus closely linked to university development. Within the audit, the project implementers focused on the field of study and teaching in addition to various other fields of action in the area of transfer. In addition, challenges and potentials were highlighted and analyzed with various stakeholders. The cooperation project was also embedded in the implementation process of the Learning and Teaching mission statement, for which the focus topic of practice-oriented teaching was set in a first round for 2024. Within this framework, six student teaching and learning projects were also supported via an innovation fund.
In order to promote collegial exchange, create more visibility and contribute to structural anchoring, we held higher education didactic workshop discussions following the transfer audit. These discussions were used for collegial exchange, cooperative curriculum development and the survey of didactic patterns and motives in the context of practice-oriented teaching.
The topics of the events in the winter semester 2024/25 and summer semester 2025 included
- Didactics of practice-oriented teaching (November 20, 2024): This looked at the spectrum of practice-oriented and practice-research-based teaching.
- Spaces for self-directed and exploratory learning (January 13, 2025): The focus was on educational spaces as well as pedagogical concepts and methods that promote self-directed learning.
- Curricular anchoring of practice-oriented teaching (May 16, 2025): The event addressed how practice-oriented teaching can be anchored in study concepts and examination regulations.
- Teaching role(s) in practice-oriented teaching (June 17, 2025): The workshop was dedicated to the questions of what visions lecturers have for the further development and anchoring of practice-oriented teaching in the future and what this means for their own work and lecturer role(s).
Numerous lecturers, students and staff from both faculties from different degree programs and areas of work took part with impulse inputs, the sharing of good practice examples and committed and appreciative contributions.
Results of the project
The project delivered a number of important findings that can be divided into different categories:
1. transfer
During the audit, it became clear that, compared to other universities, ASH Berlin can demonstrate a large number of formats in the area of "transfer in the context of higher education professionalization processes" in which either practical and community cooperation takes place (e.g. in projects, practical research, etc.) or in which practical knowledge is incorporated (e.g. in excursions, case work, etc.). The auditors recommended increasing the visibility of these instructive and dazzling activities for students and the public as well as the exchange between colleagues.
2 Forms of professional practice in teaching
The analysis of the module handbooks and the collegial exchange on learning arrangements showed that professional practice is addressed in teaching in many different ways.
The spectrum ranges from reflection on practice and documentation of practice to the implementation of practice in critical service learning processes or in the course of developing methods and concepts. The result is an outline of didactic design patterns for teaching/learning scenarios. Based on Bloom's taxonomy (1973), the development of students' skills is located on a spectrum ranging from the pure acquisition of knowledge to the transformation of practice. (See diagram above.)
3 Larger embedding of teaching
In the course of the project on practice-oriented teaching, various larger concepts also became apparent in which practice-oriented teaching is anchored at ASH Berlin:
- Collaborations: Teaching and learning with the involvement of addressees and practice partners, such as in "teaching in prison".
- Experiments: The use of scientific experiments and skills labs.
- Didactic arcs: Development of didactic processes ranging from biographical analyses to field analysis.
- Constructive Alignment: A detailed alignment of learning objectives, learning activities and examination performance.
- Curricular centerpieces: An anchoring of practice-researching or practice-transforming modules that undergo didactic preparation in preceding modules.
- Work-based learning support: Recognition of the student reality, which is often characterized by gainful employment.
4 Motives of teachers
The motives for participating in collegial exchange and involvement in didactic quality development are diverse. Participants particularly appreciated having a common space for didactic exchange at the university. The motives for participation range from the desire for visibility and recognition for achievements in teaching to benefiting and learning from the ideas of others through interdisciplinary exchange. This also serves to secure knowledge and further develop teaching concepts within the faculty and can be made fruitful for new teachers during onboarding.
5. prerequisites
Cooperative and practice-oriented teaching proves to be labor- and resource-intensive. It requires higher teaching capacities for team teaching, the initiation and maintenance of collaborations and the development of special models for curricular anchoring. Funding and support as well as resources for structural anchoring are therefore essential. Although these conditions have only existed to a limited extent at ASH Berlin in recent years, teaching staff have shown enormous commitment in this area and the Department of Quality Management and Development has repeatedly created higher education didactic exchange formats.
Outlook
The results of the "Practice-oriented teaching" project should be further anchored in the structures of ASH Berlin.
The recommended steps include
- Focusing on practice-oriented teaching in curricula as part of upcoming degree program developments and reform processes.
- Linking questions of competence and practice-oriented assessment and anchoring these formats in the curricula.
- The development of a guideline with models for practical reflection.
- The development of a matrix for linking practical stages, competencies and innovative examination formats (and also examination criteria).
- The further operationalization of the guiding principle of learning and teaching by defining quality objectives in study programmes and incorporating them into the quality management system.
The results presented show that the establishment of conducive structures for cooperative curriculum development is a complex, but also a very meaningful and unifying process. Continuous dialog, the recognition of didactic achievements and the provision of the necessary resources are crucial to making university teaching fit for the future.
About the authors:
Urte Böhm, Head of the Department of Quality Management and Development in Studies and Teaching (QME SuL) and Consultant for University Didactics and Innovation at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin (ASH Berlin)
Prof. Dr. Barbara Schäuble, Professor for diversity-conscious approaches in the theory and practice of social work at Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin (ASH Berlin)
Prof. Dr. Anja Voss, Vice President for Studies, Teaching and Digitalization and Professor of Movement Education/Therapy and Health Promotion at Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin (ASH Berlin)
