The University of Potsdam is becoming the motor for digital learning in schools and in further education nationwide: The university is coordinating a corresponding cross-state joint project with twelve locations across Germany, as announced at the start on Wednesday.
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research will support the project over the next three years with a total of 30 million euros, with 12.9 million euros going directly to the university. The management will be taken over by the digital education expert Katharina Scheiter, who moved to Potsdam last year, and Dirk Richter, professor for educational research.
Accordingly, a networking and transfer point is to be created at the university, which is to be the umbrella for four competence centers that are currently being set up with different focal points. The first of these centers is scheduled to start in April and will deal with mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology (MINT).
The second competence center deals with languages, economics and social sciences, the third with music, art and sport and the fourth with school development, the university explained. The task of the centers is to “develop innovative and effective methods for the digitization-related professionalization of teachers and for the digital transformation in schools”.
60 employees nationwide, 28 of them in Potsdam
Teachers must support all students “regardless of their origin or family home in acquiring digital skills,” the Federal Ministry of Education explained in November. In total, the federal government even wants to invest up to 205 million euros in funding for research and development of corresponding training offers by the end of 2026, it was said at the time.
In the new coordination office in Potsdam alone, 28 employees will take care of the networking of the centers and the accompanying research, as the university announced. The new facility employs 60 specialists nationwide.
University President Oliver Günther sees the university as well equipped for the demanding task. “We have closely linked our teacher training with educational research in order to quickly transfer current research results, especially on the digitization of the classroom, into teaching and practice,” he explained.
The Potsdam coordination office is to support the work of the four competence centers and bundle their results for transfer to everyday school life. To this end, they want to work closely with school authorities and state institutes, education policy and education administration, explained Katharina Scheiter: “We will deal intensively with when such a transfer will succeed and which groups of actors will play a key role here.”
In addition to co-leading the Potsdam coordination office at the first competence center, Scheiter will coordinate one of six cross-location projects. Potsdam researchers are also involved in the other three competence centers, which should be approved in the spring, as the university announced.
Katharina Scheiter was appointed to the new professorship for digital education at the University of Potsdam in May 2022 – Potsdam had entered new territory with the focus nationwide, it was said at the time. Her professorship will initially be financed for five years by the Hasso Plattner Foundation.
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