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Intro
This curriculum has the professional ability of graduates as its goal; it serves as a medium of discourse and not as an end in itself for organising teaching and learning. In this way, it also attempts to provide answers for the reorientation of society and makes an offer to walk these paths in dialogue: Developed in dialogue with the university’s internal scientific community and with stakeholders, it follows the wishes and perspectives of people in the roles of students, teachers, and researchers, takes into account the mega-trends of social reality in its orientations, presents them in networked clarity and is deliberately designed to be reader-friendly – its paradigms are:
⁘ Interweaving of tradition and innovation
The previous, highly accepted curriculum is adopted in its core messages and objectives; at the same time, it focuses on the new primary level curricula as currently offered and discussed by the responsible Federal Ministry.
⁘ Readability optimisation through branched network structure
The curriculum is structured in a network using a navigator and increases readability through different access points – by orientation, by subjects/educational sciences, by specialisations, by years of study. In addition, self-explanatory search routines are built in to facilitate information. Clear messages have a signalling effect; branched explanations increase comprehensibility for cross-readers. Its messages are illustrated with cross-references and backed up with opportunities to ask questions.
⁘ Orientations as an offer for social transformation
Its orientations – Anthropocene; aesthetics; movement, sport and health; digitality; diversity; attitude; cultural techniques; social peace – reflect current societal challenges of legal, professional, and social curricular objectives. The educational areas (subjects) and the fundamentals of educational science are anchored in all these orientations with their different weighting. They are supplemented by theintroductory and orientation period as well as the practical pedagogical studies.
⁘ Personal association bridges of study progress
The aim is to find a middle ground between free choice of the sequence of courses close to the university and fixed semester-by-semester assignments in conformity with the university of applied sciences through conceptually orientating guiding objectives; behind this is the idea of not assigning people to disciplines but rather educational disciplines to people representing them as role models:
(1) The first year of study should involve basic assignments: Introduction to scientific work and writing; how to formulate a research question; how to read, excerpt, and paraphrase specialist literature. This results in four fields to which the courses can be assigned: Getting to know science; learning to research; recognising the ability to study; understanding theory and practice as both.
(2) In the second year of study, the focus shall be on learning-side orientation. The four assignable fields are: Mathetics over didactics; mindfulness of learning; what is a good school?; professional knowledge; attitude.
(3) In the third year of study, diversity and professionalism should not be experienced as opposites but rather as belonging to each other and should be made learnable. The four assignable fields are: diversity, participation, and inclusion; subjects, subject connection, and transdisciplinarity; initial teaching.
(4) In the fourth year of study, the focus should be on new requirements for our society and future. The four assignable fields are: Human-nature relationship as a task for the future; solidarity after corona; digitality instead of mere digitalisation; climate protection in the school community; “us world” as “we world”.
(5) In the fifth year of study, the transition to independent teaching should become visible as a clear marking of a profession-oriented, self-responsible Master’s programme. The four assignable fields are: Education for all and as a valuable asset; lifelong learning; learning to teach, teaching to learn.
Names of people are assigned to these five years of study, thereby typifying them and making them easy to understand according to their purpose. They are the result of a long and rigorously considered planning process at the PH NÖ, which takes a variety of aspects into account: Intertwining person and message; role modelling being a teacher today; gender equity; contacting people to use their expertise:
(1) Humboldt brothers year: Research, teaching, science, humanism, digital education (2) Michael Schratz Year: Mindfulness of learning, proximity to pupils, school pedagogy
(3) Annedore Prengel Year: Diversity, multilingualism, inclusion, cultural techniques (4) Reinhold Leinfelder Year: Anthropocene
(5) Malala Yousafzai Year: Education as the highest good, education for all
⁘ Equivalence and uniqueness of courses
Following a large number of discussions with students, teachers, and stakeholders, almost all courses are offered in a symmetrical form and comparable external structure: three hours and five ECTS-CP. The aim is a quality orientation and to focus course planning more on individual teachers and their prioritisation of content, methods, and social forms. Formal agreement obligations (time sequence, performance requirements, examination design, and feedback culture) are thus significantly reduced compared with a large number of one and two-hour courses. Blocks become more diverse, easier to adapt to content, methods, temporal, and spatial conditions, and thus altogether much more flexible. The professional qualification of the teachers becomes more recognisable, and staff development is implicitly promoted.
⁘ Interactive online presentation
The homepage of a university of education is currently its central figurehead. Prospective students get their first information there and use it as a guide throughout their careers – first as students and later as teachers. And learning has significant social factors; it needs people in conversation. Getting to know fields of study is done not only by reading up on the curriculum but also by talking to peers, role models, and people who provide information. For this reason, almost all sub-pages contain icons that, when clicked on, open a window in which contact can be made with responsible university staff who are able to answer questions in an uncomplicated, direct, and customer-oriented manner.
⁘ Digital and personal interweaving
Each course involves a time-oriented paradigm shift through the commitment of a combination of both online and physical presence time fields freely chosen by the course leader. At the beginning of the course, the course instructors agree on the relevant course components. Framework conditions for both online and classroom components.
⁘ Typifying designation of the courses
Finally, we would like to point out the titles of all the courses, the core message of which is an orientation towards children as pupils at the primary level is expressed in the title. These are deliberately formulated in a simple manner appropriate for children. A sub-title is added explaining the course in more detail.
January 2021 // Erwin Rauscher, Rector of the PH NÖ - Primary Level 2021 / Version 1.0 Resolution of the University Board / Approval by the Rectorate: 14 January 2021
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