PRESS RELEASE: Science meets practice: BeWEEN Training by the University of Vienna

29.09.2022

As part of the BEWEEN project, we held a workshop with 18 high school teachers, discussing well-being and sustainability in the digital world. The workshop had two main goals: First, the workshop aimed to introduce teachers to relevant research insights regarding digital maturity, which enables a responsible use of digital technologies for well-being and the environment. Second, the goal was to gather the pedagogical expertise of teachers and collect ideas for potential tasks to encourage a more positive use of digital technology by students, regarding both students’ well-being and sustainability.

The workshop was run by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Arnd Florack, with the support of Teresa Koch, BSc. MSc., and Meike Huefnagels, BSc., who work and research at the lab for social psychology at the University of Vienna.  After research insights regarding students’ use of digital devices and digital maturity were presented, teachers’ expertise and input were gathered. In an interactive workshop setting, we discussed what topics and issues are especially relevant for students regarding the digital world, and how a mature use of digital devices could be fostered. The goal was to create exercises which could improve students’ understanding and mature use of digital technology.

The workshop was a true success for both sides. All teachers contributed to the workshop with thought-provoking questions, stories from their daily work and exciting ideas. Teachers appreciated the content and found it relevant to their work. It was also a great success for us and our following work, as great ideas for tasks emerged, which can further develop the understanding of the topic from a research perspective. Listening to practical examples from teachers emphasised the importance of digital maturity once again. The workshop highlighted the importance of the exchange between researchers and teachers in the development of concepts and interventions.

It was encouraging to see that our research is perceived as highly relevant and that teachers are willing to make a valuable contribution to our work by staying in touch with us and using the provided Moodle platform to share their ideas and feedback. We thank the BG/BRG Klosterneuburg and especially all participating teachers for this fruitful collaboration.

Science has successfully met practice and will continue to do so in the future.

www.beween.eu

Teresa Koch, BSc., MSc.

Direktorin Mag. Hemma Poledna, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Arnd Florack, Teresa Koch, BSc., MSc. (v. l. n. r.)