Looking back on 9 years of “MINT-Lehramt PLUS”

Prof. Dr. Hans-Stefan Siller, Chair of Math­emat­ics Edu­cati­on, opened the con­fer­ence by wel­com­ing the 350 guests on behalf of the two pro­ject lead­ers, Prof. Volker Ulm and Prof. Thomas Tre­fzger. In a presentation, he illus­trated the op­por­tuni­ties that more than 200 cur­rent and for­mer stu­dents in the pro­ject took ad­van­tage of along­side their teach­er train­ing. In-depth par­ticipa­tion in re­search pro­jects, con­tribu­tion to scien­tific publi­cati­ons, re­search stays, and the prac­tical appli­cation of find­ings from edu­cational re­search in schools are just a few ex­am­ples.

In an inter­view, the two alum­ni San­dra Petry and Dr. Mar­cel Em­mert talked about the signif­icance of the Elite Graduate Program “MINT-Lehramt Plus” for them and their life paths. For both alum­ni, the op­por­tunity to delve deep­er into sub­ject areas of their own inter­est was a deci­sive fac­tor. They also em­phasized the close inte­gra­tion into an inter­disci­pli­nary com­muni­ty of com­mit­ted stu­dents from vari­ous disci­plines and uni­versi­ties. Par­ticu­larly mem­orable events were the annu­al holi­day acad­emies, visits to extra­cur­ricular learn­ing loca­tions, and learn­ing trips, where they were able to get to know schools with alter­native teach­ing con­cepts. 

To­day, both are pro­fes­sionally con­nect­ed to both the uni­versi­ty and the school sys­tem, thus con­tinu­ing the syn­ergy be­tween sci­ence and prac­tice.

The inter­disci­pli­nary pro­gram con­tinued with a key­note speech by Sa­bena Don­ath from the Cen­tral Council of Jews in Ger­many and a panel dis­cussion on the topic of de­moc­racy edu­cation in schools. After that, it was back to STEM. Dur­ing the lunch break, stu­dents and coor­dina­tors pre­sent­ed their re­search on cli­mate edu­cati­on, AI in teach­ing, and prac­tical test­ing of the re­volving door model in a poster ses­sion.

The high­light of the after­noon was the work­shops de­signed by alum­ni and partic­ipants, in which expe­rienc­es from the “MINT-Leh­ramt PLUS” pro­gram were passed on di­rectly to teach­ers. The pro­gram in­clud­ed topics such as sup­port­ing math­emat­ically gifted stu­dents, ener­gy tech­nolo­gy, AI in math­emat­ics teach­ing, mod­ern dyes, and inter­disci­pli­nary re­search on cli­mate change.

Text:  Dr. Brenda Pfenning, Elite Graduate Program „MINT-Lehramt PLUS“