At the University of Bayreuth, the highest-achieving students enrolled in STEM teacher education degree programmes have the opportunity to transfer to the ELITE STEM Teacher Education PLUS programme. This programme focuses on the targeted support of exceptionally talented students within the framework of the Bavarian Elite Network (Elitenetzwerk Bayern). For the past ten years, the Universities of Bayreuth and Würzburg have jointly offered this programme to promote particularly gifted and high-performing prospective secondary-school teachers in the subjects of Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics. Following the conclusion of the ten-year funding period, the University of Bayreuth will continue to offer the programme independently from the forthcoming winter semester onwards.
This summer semester, six students currently enrolled in Bayreuth’s ELITE programme were given the special opportunity to participate in the EU Summer School for STEM teachers from across Europe in Greece. “The conceptual framework is provided by our ongoing BRIDGES project, which aims to further strengthen education for sustainable future competencies through selected examples of best practice,” explains Professor Franz X. Bogner, who, together with the Greek project partners, was responsible for coordinating and leading the Summer School module.
Prior to the Summer School, each participant selected and developed a specific teaching topic and uploaded the material in English to the BRIDGES portal. The task for every participant was to design practical teaching scenarios in accordance with PISA criteria and to progressively develop them into classroom-ready learning concepts suitable for use across Europe. During the week-long Summer School, the students presented their materials and had the opportunity to network and exchange ideas with more than 80 teachers from across Europe.
The programme was closely integrated into the corresponding work packages of the EU project, whose structural architecture had been an important element in the highly competitive funding selection process. The project call explicitly required the dissemination of outcomes into European school systems. However, bringing together student teachers and practising teachers for an entire week to work towards common goals is what makes the Bayreuth teacher education programme truly distinctive – beyond the shared use of English as the language of communication.
