Second Community School Conference
How can we shape school development together? And what do we actually gain from cooperation when we talk about democratic education or open forms of teaching? Under the title “Achieving More Together – Cooperation as the Key to Effective School Development,” the Leuphana Innovation Community School Development and Leadership hosted its second Community School Conference on March 19, where we collectively explored these and similar questions.
School is a collaborative effort. It faces complex challenges, and overcoming them requires the cooperation of all those involved – from those working in schools, the administration, academia and other stakeholders in education.
This is precisely where the Community School Conference steps in. It does not offer lectures designed to impart knowledge, but rather fosters collaborative processes, shared visions and learning through dialogue, with the aim of rethinking the future of schools.
Following the Community School Conference in November 2024, we invited participants for the second time to bring our perspectives together, share experiences, reflect on school development processes and jointly build sustainable solutions.
In an open, dialogue-oriented format, we combined ideas and best practices with networking and participatory workshops – on open teaching, democracy education and new approaches to school development (see below).
The aim of the conference was to strengthen existing networks, initiate new collaborations and take the next concrete steps together towards a sustainable school.
We would like to thank all participants and speakers for their excellent cooperation!
12:30 pm
Arrival
1:00 pm
Welcome
1:15 pm
Short presentation by Prof. Dr Steffen Farny on the topic ‘Shaping knowledge transfer together’
1:30 pm
Interactive session: Sharing experiences and insights
2:05 pm
Break
14:15
Workshops with practical approaches
(see below for detailed information)
16:15
Gallery walk as an interactive break
16:35
Interactive session: Further developing ideas and solutions
17:35
Closing remarks
18:00
End
Building the Future: Perspectives with Lego® Serious Play®
In this interactive workshop, you’ll give free rein to your creativity. Using the Lego® Serious Play® method, you’ll develop models of your visions for the future, bringing relevant aspects to light – including those you weren’t even aware of at first. Through targeted reflection interviews, we will explore these aspects, uncover new perspectives and identify what we need to navigate these future scenarios successfully.
Speakers:
- Hariet Schellig
Research Associate, Institute of Educational Science - Florian List
Research Associate, Institute for Sustainable Chemistry, Group for the Didactics of Natural Sciences
Playing through change: “Game of Schools” – a serious game for school development
Schools currently face major challenges, yet often lack the necessary resources to tackle them. Sometimes there is a lack of funding, sometimes a shortage of available staff, or plans are simply thrown into disarray by unforeseeable events. In “Game of Schools”, the newly developed card game from the Leuphana Innovation Community for School Development and Leadership, players take on the role of a school management team. The aim is to develop their own school through various projects and collect as many points as possible. This involves managing resources wisely, combining them in new and different ways, finding creative solutions to bottlenecks, and cooperating with others
In this workshop, we aim to test the game prototype and discuss together whether and how this serious game can provide teachers with ideas for their everyday school life.
Maximum number of participants: 8
Speaker:
- Dennis Wohlfeil
Research Associate, Institute of Educational Science
Finding Solutions: Open Teaching in Everyday School Life
How can open teaching succeed in real-world school settings? In this workshop, we will explore typical questions surrounding ‘open teaching’. At various stations, we will work together to develop practical solutions for different school contexts, drawing on advice from experts. The aim is for participants to take concrete ideas and options for action back into their everyday (working) lives, so they can tackle the school’s transition to open teaching and find their own role within it.
Speaker:
- Ninja Müller
Research Assistant, Institute of Educational Science
Implementing innovation: A travelling conference on school networking
The ‘Democracy Education’ travelling conference brings together schools that wish to engage in dialogue on opening up teaching and democracy education. We visit each other, open our classrooms and learn from one another directly on site. We share our concepts, discuss what works well, and tackle challenges together. The aim is to create a network that will endure in the long term, beyond individual projects. In this workshop, we’d like to work with you to plan how best to organise such a travelling conference. At various stations, we’ll brainstorm and reflect on concepts, needs and resources, and together draw up a roadmap for the first ‘Democracy Education’ travelling conference. Whether you’re curious, still exploring your options or already brimming with ideas: everyone is welcome to join us on this journey and become part of the conference!
Speaker:
- Gerd Krohn
Teacher, ESD coordinator and head of the Democracy Working Group at Sachsenwaldschule Gymnasium Reinbek