Professor Johannes Wildt in Umeå

LUNCHTALK

Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Johannes Wildt from TU Dortmund university, Center of Didactics, talked in our LunchTalk at Umeå university about Challenges of Didactics and academic development - Looking Back and Move Forward. (Tuesday, 4th Sept 2012, 12:00-14:00, Sandwiches and Coffee served)

Johannes Wildt taked about the modern history of "Hochschul-Didaktik" (Didactics and Academic Development in Higher Education) in Germany which goes back to the late 1960s. Often the student movement is interpreted as the most driving factor for a development in those early times. This is true to some extent. But looking a little bit deeper, the underlying forces of those times may be seen as driven by a growing quantitative and qualitative demand from the science, the society as well as the labor market which formed a sustainable cultural change in values and behavioral patterns of the people. From those times, there was a slowly change of teaching and learning with various up and downs. Under the shadow of the Bologna-Process during the last decade the change in culture as "shift from teaching to learning" has been growing faster and is now touching the threshold of new paradigms of educational concepts. Nowadays there exist a lot of different reform initiatives. The lecture gave an overview about the picture of the Hochschuldidaktik of today from a German point of view.

WORKSHOP

In an very interactive workshop on Wednesday Sept/05, 2012, together with Bea Wildt, we worked on the "Similarities and Differences of Didactical Cultures in Teaching and Learning in different countries". The workshop participants included their perspectives from Sweden, Germany, UK, Greece, and Ukraine (and China).

In a broader view, and looking from a distance, the cultures of teaching and learning in Sweden and Germany look familiar. There are common values, norms, habits and practices. On the other hand, going much more into detail, some differences appear. The workshop aimed to find out those similarities as well as differences. It gave the opportunity to express and reflect the experiences of the participants, which they gain(ed) in their higher education environment. The workshop integrated th experiences into a frame of different theoretical considerations and empirical findings, for instance, Tony Beechers "Cultures of Sciences" and the "conceptions of teaching and learning" derived from pedagogical psychology and empirical education (David Kember). The overall aim was to share ideas, to reflect experiences, to work on practical issues while considering theoretical issues and finally we draw conclusions on different levels: (1) we derived questions about intercultural aspects in teaching, (2) we explored measures for a development of intercultural competences among academic staff. This was a good start ! Now we can create joint projects to compare the relations of teaching and learning cultures between Sweden and Germany.

CV Johannes Wildt

Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Johannes Wildt, Dipl.-Psych., is Full Professor at the Faculty of Education and Sociology of the TU Dortmund in Germany and Director of the Centre for Research in Higher Education and Faculty Development (Center of Didaktik). Since 1970 his research is focused on continuing education including activities as advisor and consultant in the development of faculty members. His research has a great variety of areas in Higher Education with a strong focus on innovative concepts of teaching and learning. He is engaged in lot of national and international committees and boards concerning different issues in Higher Education, for instance, Europe, USA and China. johannes.wildt@tu-dortmund.de