Science Minister Dr. Manja Schüle today in Potsdam together with Prof. Dr. Christoph Meinel, Managing Director and Scientific Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), and Prof. Dr. Andreas Borowski, director of the Center for Teacher Training and Educational Research (ZeLB) and holder of the Chair for Didactics of Physics at the University of Potsdam, the education expert Prof. Dr. Catherine Scheiter introduced. She was appointed to a newly established professorship for digital education at the Faculty of Human Sciences at the University of Potsdam as part of an endowed professorship funded by the Hasso Plattner Foundation.
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Minister of Science dr Manya school: “Digital transformation can improve and simplify our lives, as we have seen not least in the pandemic. However, children and young people must first learn how to use digital media intelligently and sensibly as a work tool or as a knowledge resource. I am certain that digital and analog learning and work infrastructures will be equal in the future and will enrich each other. Nevertheless, there is still a lot to do in the broad field of digital school education in particular. And that’s why I’m very grateful to the Hasso Plattner Foundation for initially financing the professorship for digital education at the University of Potsdam for five years. A focus is to be established that deals with all aspects of digitization in the field of school education in research and teaching. With Prof. Dr. Katharina Scheiter, we have gained an outstanding and internationally renowned researcher who will sharpen the profile of the University of Potsdam and establish a center for digital education. This much is already certain: Katharina Scheiter is an asset to our Brandenburg research landscape!”
Prof. Dr. Christopher Meinel, Managing Director and Scientific Director of the HPI: “For many years, the HPI has played a pioneering role in the field of education for sustainable digital learning and work infrastructures. We are all the happier to welcome Ms. Scheiter, a first-class professor, and to be able to fund her endowed professorship through the Hasso Plattner Foundation.”
Prof. Dr. Andreas Borowski, Director of the Center for Teacher Training and Educational Research (ZeLB) and Chair of Physics Didactics at the University of Potsdam: “Teachers need media didactic knowledge and skills. The university has already been able to advance important developments with projects such as ‘media education in teacher training’, ‘digital primary school’, ‘quality offensive for teacher training’ and ‘innovative university’. With Professor Scheiter, digital education can now become a networked research focus of the University of Potsdam in research, teaching and transfer. The teacher training at the University of Potsdam is very pleased that Prof. Scheiter could be won for the university. We are looking forward to a good cooperation.”
Prof. Dr. Catherine Scheider, holder of the HPI endowed professorship for digital education: “For the digital transformation in school education, much more is needed than digital devices. We need didactically and professionally high-quality digital teaching and learning materials, concepts for the effective integration of digital media in the classroom, teachers who select digital media and use them sensibly in the classroom, and students who use media competently and critically. Only then can the potential of digital media, such as the possibility of individual support for learners through adaptive offers, come into play. It is important to me to use my research to generate scientific evidence for the implementation of digital transformation and to communicate and discuss relevant findings in educational practice. The topic of teacher training is particularly important to me because teachers bear a special responsibility for the success of this transformation. I am looking forward to being able to continue to develop research, teaching and practical transfer in the field of digital education in a sustainable manner in the coming years together with my colleagues from educational science, subject didactics and computer science at the University of Potsdam. The generous support from the Hasso Plattner Foundation offers excellent framework conditions for this.”
Catherine Scheider studied psychology at the Georg-August-University in Göttingen from 1993 to 1999. In 2003 she received her doctorate from the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, and in 2009 she completed her habilitation there. As a professor for empirical teaching and learning research, she headed a working group at the Leibniz Institute for Knowledge Media in Tübingen.
Die Professor for Digital Education is initially financed for five years by the Hasso Plattner Foundation and is integrated into the Human Sciences Faculty of the University of Potsdam. A focus is to be established at the faculty that deals with all aspects of digitization in the field of school education in research and teaching. From 2027, the endowed professorship is to be established as the successor to a professorship for social science educational research.
press release of the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg from May 30, 2022
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