Background and objectives
The sTUDies 3.0 teaching strategy is a program initiated by the Office of the Vice-Rector Academic Affairs (duration: 2020–2025) for the continued development and optimization of teaching at the TU Dresden. Here, the development and finalization of the vision for teaching merge with the creation and resolution of the university-wide teaching mission statement, giving way to the teaching strategy, a concept for the implementation of the vision and the teaching mission statement in everyday teaching and learning. The Office of the Vice-Rector Academic Affairs looks forward to implementing the program in cooperation with everyone involved in teaching and to firmly entrenching its goals in teaching at the TU Dresden.
Our focus thus lies on three key questions: How will educators and students jointly shape teaching at TU Dresden in the future? What should be the focus of teaching development? What content, structures and processes need to be adapted to ensure that our teaching meets the requirements of a leading global university in the 21st century?
sTUDies 3.0 teaching strategy
The sTUDium 3.0 teaching strategy addresses these key questions in iterative and participatory processes, focusing on all those involved in teaching. Their joint responsibility is reflected in the vision for teaching in the introduction of the teaching mission statement: "Students and teaching staff accept joint responsibility for successful teaching. To this end, TU Dresden offers the appropriate tools and sufficient creative freedom to rethink and develop teaching, learning and examination.
In November 2020, a workshop was established to begin development of the vision for teaching. In addition to the Extended University Executive Board, members from the Standing Committee of the Senate on Teaching – including two students – representatives of Central Academic Units and the Central University Administration took part. The vision focuses on the diversity of teaching staff and students and it promotes open discourse, critical thinking as well as self-reflection. It also advocates for individual and flexible study. It serves as a future-oriented framework for the foundations on which teaching is based, who it should reach, and what it should impart.
The vision for teaching became the basis for the development of a modern teaching mission statement for TU Dresden. In groups representative of all TUD members (professors, administrative and technical staff, academic staff and students), participants discussed the established objectives in order to translate the vision for teaching into a true mission statement. The result was a comparison of prevailing conditions and future potential of the current educational landscape at TUD, which was summarized in 13 key focus areas and included as fields of action in the teaching mission statement. Each field of action identifies current and future initiatives for the further development of teaching.
Following the resolution of the teaching mission statement by the Senate of TU Dresden in February 2022, the planning phase for implementing the vision for teaching and the mission statement began as part of the sTUDium 3.0 teaching strategy. During this phase, approaches as well as the potential areas of action and success of the initiatives for the further development of teaching will be translated into established and expanded long-term structures of future teaching. The joint development of future concepts will strengthen collaboration in teaching and the joint responsibility for teaching at TU Dresden.
Check back here for regular updates on the progress of our work.