University Pearl 2024 Awarded

Great joy at the Universities of Würzburg and Bamberg: the joint project Teachers as Changemakers (TaC) has been named University Pearl of the Year 2024 by the Stifterverband and will receive prize money of 10,000 euros. The winning project, which was determined by public voting, received almost 32 per cent of the 2,953 votes cast in the 24-hour SMS voting. The twelve University Pearls for the months of January to December 2024 were eligible for the Stifterverband award. TaC was awarded the University Pearl of the Month for February 2024 by the Stifterverband on the topic of "Rethinking teacher training". The motto of the annual award is "Rethinking Teacher Education".

As part of the "Teachers as Changemakers" (TaC) project, teaching degree students from the Universities of Würzburg (JMU) and Bamberg are trained as multipliers for social entrepreneurial thinking and action in schools. This will enable future generations to take their future into their own hands and actively shape social and ecological change. The TaC training programmes are aimed at lecturers, around 9,000 teaching degree students at both universities as well as teachers at selected partner schools and their pupils.

About the Joint Project

The project is based on the Social Entrepreneurship Education (SEE) approach. This combines the content of education for sustainable development with the social entrepreneurship dimension in order to enable holistic skills development. Social entrepreneurship refers to entrepreneurial thinking and action that contributes to the good of society and aims to improve or solve social problems.

In addition to professional learning gains, elementary personal skills and central key competences for lifelong learning are strengthened in particular: personal responsibility, personal initiative, innovative spirit, controlled willingness to take risks, constructive handling of failures and upheavals as well as self-confidence and perseverance. TaC is characterised by its holistic approach of linking theory and school practice.

In courses, impact workshops and workshops, relevant topics relating to social entrepreneurship are taught and tested in practice. Teaching degree students develop their own teaching examples and also design their own social and ecological projects in direct dialogue with pupils.

Contemporary Teacher Training

"The TaC project modernises teacher training by promoting important social entrepreneurial future skills. Teachers are empowered to teach schoolchildren the skills they need to actively participate in and shape social life later on," said the Stifterverband jury on its decision at the time to award the University Pearl of the Month for February 2024 to Bamberg and Würzburg. "The fact that the module can not only be completed but also incorporated into the degree programme via the credits provided for in the curriculum is exemplary."

"Teachers as Changemakers" at the University of Würzburg

At JMU, the Professional School of Education and the Research and Technology Transfer Service Centre are involved in the project. They regularly organise courses on the integration of social entrepreneurship education into the classroom. Student teachers can then later apply the knowledge they acquire there directly in the classroom at school.

The "Teaching for Impact" lecture series also takes place every winter semester. Here, interested students learn more about social entrepreneurship in schools from experts from all over the world using the methods, initiatives and projects presented. The programme at JMU is complemented by the "Social Entrepreneurship Education/Social Innovation Education" seminar. It takes place every summer semester with a changing thematic focus and offers students the opportunity to familiarise themselves with SEE concepts and methods and try them out for themselves. It is complemented by the "Impact Workshop", which invites students to network and try out innovative project-orientated teaching methods together once a semester.

About the Stifterverband

In terms of content, the Stifterverband works in two central fields of action: Education and Expertise and Collaborative Promotion and Innovation. To this end, it provides key impetus to the education, higher education and science system. Among other things, the association strengthens the training of teachers and the range of extracurricular education on offer.

More information can be found on the Stifterverband website.