Six particularly well-evaluated courses received the Teaching Award this year - one from each School. An overview of the award-winning seminars and lectures.
What makes a good course? That's what the University of Oldenburg is all about in mid-November when the Teaching Prize is awarded. This year, the lecturers of six courses from all Schools can look forward to receiving the prize, which is endowed with 1,000 euros each: social scientist Prof. Dr Jannika Mattes, sustainability researchers Dr Sophie Berg and Dr Hendrik Wolter, art historian Prof. Dr Friederike Nastold, history didactics expert Pia Schiffer, chemist Dr Lars Mohrhusen and medical scientist Dr Maya Sophie de Wilde were honoured. Their seminars and lectures received particularly good ratings from students in the course evaluation. As varied as the topics were: Students praised the practical relevance, good organisation, a pleasant learning atmosphere and the fact that there was room for discussion and individual questions at all events.
The courses at a glance:
Individual support in the research process
In the second and third semesters of the English-language Master's degree programme in Social Sciences, students are required to write a thesis - a small research project almost the size of a Bachelor's thesis. A challenge for many of the participants: "Our student body is very international and has therefore learnt academic work in very different ways," reports Prof Dr Jannika Mattes. The social scientist offered the "Project Coaching" seminar in the summer semester of 2025, in which she individually supported the participants from the second semester in preparing their research project. Mattes refreshed the basics of scientific work, gave tips on writing and citing and supported the students, for example, in structuring literature research or finding a specific research question - depending on what they were currently working on. "I was basically the sparring partner for the preparation of the projects," she reports. Afterwards, the students in their current third semester continue to be supervised by the relevant lecturers.
The students took a lot away from the event: They praised the fact that there was plenty of room for questions and comments, that they were encouraged to reflect critically and received lots of good tips - for example on how to collect data, organise themselves in terms of time or structure a scientific article.
- Event: Project Coaching
- Lecturer: Prof. Dr Jannika Mattes
- Degree programme: Master Social Sciences
- School I - School of Educational and Social Sciences
Thinking about sustainability while playing
Anyone who has to deal with issues such as climate policy, social justice or sustainability in their academic appointments often has to deal with conflicts, contradictions and tensions. In the summer semester of 2025, Dr Sophie Berg and Dr Hendrik Wolter from the Ecological Economics working group chose an unusual approach - game-based learning - to teach students on degree programmes with a focus on sustainability how to deal with such dilemmas.
In their course "Decisions under uncertainty: making the dilemmas of sustainability tangible through play", the participants tried out a total of six different games. For example, they built up the energy supply of an island in the board game "Catan - Energies", steered the warming planet through the next 200 years in the strategy game "Fate of the World" or tried to balance the interests of different groups in the role-playing game "Gifts of Culture" in order to prevent a flood disaster. The games not only sensitise players to conflicts of values and interests, but also to emotions such as greed, anger, shame and peer pressure. "We talk about 'serious gaming'. It's all about gaining an understanding of other perspectives and the behaviour of other people," explains Sophie Berg.
Sessions in which the participants played alternated with appointments in which they reflected on and discussed their experiences based on guiding questions. "By repeating games and reflecting, the students learnt not only to recognise and talk about sustainability dilemmas, but also to see them in a wider context, categorise their own role and think about how they might deal with dilemma situations in their future careers," explains Wolter.
He and Berg offered the course for the first time in 2023. The unusual didactic approach continues to inspire students: In their comments on the evaluation, they praised the "great module", the "active exchange" and the "really cool games". The seminar taught soft skills such as teamwork, the ability to co-operate and an understanding of other perspectives - and was a lot of fun.
- Event: Decisions under uncertainty: making the dilemmas of sustainability tangible in a playful way
- Teachers: Dr Sophie Berg and Dr Hendrik Wolter
- Degreeprogrammes: Master Sustainability Economics and Management, Business Administration, Water and Coastal Management, Social Sciences
- School II - Computing Science, Economics and Law
Excursion to the Biennale
The Biennale, one of the most important international exhibitions of contemporary art, takes place in Venice every two years. The theme for 2024: "Foreigners Everywhere". "The artistic works exhibited there deal with topics such as being foreign, origins, identities and post-colonial issues," reports Prof Dr Friederike Nastold. Her seminar on the Biennale entitled "Foreigners everywhere - Collective (working) forms in art" in the winter semester 2024/25 was not only dedicated to the history of the Biennale and selected artistic works. An excursion to Venice also gave the seminar participants the opportunity to deepen their engagement with the exhibits and the theme of the exhibition. "For me, it's important to combine theory and practice," emphasises Nastold. In her view, excursions offer a learning space "that expands the discussions in the seminar room and triggers other areas of reflection". This is exactly what was well received by the students: participants praised the "open, joint discussions" and "respectful encounters at eye level", but especially the "reflection phases, discussions and conversations during the excursion."
- Event: Foreigners everywhere - Collective (working) forms in art
- Lecturer: Prof. Dr Friederike Nastold
- Degree programme: Dual-subject Bachelor's degree in German Studies, Art and Media
- School III - School of Linguistics and Cultural Studies
Learning to teach and research at the same time
The "Research and Development Internship" is an integral part of the Master of Education programme for secondary school teachers in Oldenburg. In this module, students combine teaching practice and research-based learning. They usually spend seven weeks at a school during the Master's programme. On the one hand, they gain concrete teaching experience in the specialised internship. On the other hand, the research and development internship enables them to carry out an empirical survey at the school. "In the subject of history, we focus on ensuring that students also link their empirical research project with concrete teaching practice," explains Pia Schiffer, research assistant in the Department of History Didactics.
In the winter semester 2024/25, Schiffer led a seminar in which she prepared the students for the school internship, accompanied them during it and then reflected on and evaluated their experiences together with them. "The special thing about the seminar is the structure: you don't just have one seminar session a week for 14 weeks, but can accompany the students in their learning and research process for longer," she emphasises. Schiffer saw her task as a lecturer as being to support the prospective teachers in their project, but also to give them the necessary freedom to realise it.
To enable the students to gradually develop their questions further, Schiffer incorporated several joint brainstorming phases into the seminar, encouraged mutual feedback and offered all participants an individual counselling session. The positive evaluation results reinforced the didactician's concept, as she says: "In view of the complex task facing the students, I was very pleased that they found the seminar useful for themselves and their future professional practice and were able to take away new content."
- Event: Research and development internship in history
- Lecturer: Pia Schiffer
- Degree programme: Master of Education - Teaching degree Gymnasium
- School IV - School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Lecture with bonus programme
Lots of discussion and interaction - that's what characterised the lecture "Solid gas interfaces in theory and application". In the lecture, chemist Dr Lars Mohrhusen dealt with technologies that can be used to research interactions between solids and gases. Such processes are relevant in catalysis, photocatalysis and sensor technology, for example. In the course, he explained which processes take place at the interface, which methods can be used to analyse surfaces at an atomic level and where their limits lie. He also visited various laboratories on site with the students. "We looked at how state-of-the-art methods are applied in practice and which current research questions they are used for," reports Mohrhusen, who heads a junior research group funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research at the Institute of Chemistry. During the laboratory visits, the students also learnt about current research topics of individual Oldenburg working groups and were able to make contacts in order to find a place for their Master's thesis, for example. Accordingly, the students praised, for example, "the very good combination of theoretical principles and current research discourse" and the "application-oriented examples". The event increased their interest and whetted their appetite for further internships. The participants' only piece of advice: "Keep it up!"
- Event: Solid gas interfaces in theory and application - Lecture
- Lecturer: Dr Lars Mohrhusen
- Degree programme: Master Chemistry
- School V - School of Mathematics and Science
Practical relevance in medical studies
Obstetrics, breast diseases, specialist tumours, endometriosis and problem case teaching: gynaecology is a diverse subject area. "In the third year of medical school, the topic of gynaecology is omnipresent," reports Dr Maya Sophie de Wilde, research assistant at the School V - School of Medicine and Health Sciences and doctor in advanced scientific training at the University Clinic for Gynaecology at Pius Hospital Oldenburg. All students learn the basics of gynaecology during this stage of their studies. De Wilde is involved as a lecturer in various lectures, seminars and internships in this area. She received top marks in the course evaluation for her seminar "Gynaecology and Obstetrics". The aim of the course is to familiarise students with the basics of gynaecological examination techniques. "The methods are first demonstrated and then the participants can apply what they have learnt themselves using realistic models," reports the doctor. This practical approach was well received by the students.
- Course: Gynaecology and obstetrics (seminar)
- Lecturer: Dr Maya Sophie de Wilde
- Degree programme: Medicine
- School V - School of Medicine and Health Sciences
The University of Oldenburg has been honouring outstanding achievements by university lecturers since 1998. The "Teaching Prize 2024/25" is sponsored by the Universitätsgesellschaft Oldenburg e. V.
