What constitutes a coherent and successful presentation? How can one improve one’s self-confidence on stage, and which methods are most effective for comprehensive presentations? Presentations are an inherent part of our daily school life and everyday work. The project “Jugend präsentiert” provides training, concepts and teaching materials to enhance and impart presentation skills, focused on science subjects. Students benefit from the materials applied in class and can participate in the annual competition on presentations in science. The competition is declared nation-wide and amongst German schools abroad, and offers students the opportunity to practice their presentation skills beyond school. During the process of the competition, the students also receive training on presentation skills from professional rhetoric coaches.
In the school year of 2020/2021 “Jugend präsentiert” started “Jugend präsentiert Kids”, a programme to encourage presentation skills already in the early school years. Teachers are invited to attend training and to receive teaching materials. They also get support to organise presentation competitions in their schools.
A team of scientists from the department of rhetoric at the University of Tübingen develop and provide the materials for teacher training days and teaching resources. The project “Jugend präsentiert” is initiated by the Klaus Tschira Stiftung in cooperation with Wissenschaft im Dialog.
What makes a good school? What are the challenges of everyday school life? And how can they be solved with digital and technical ideas? The project Make Your School – A Workshop for Ideas gives students the opportunity to improve their own school environment and to experiment with programming and electronics. The hackdays contribute to improving digital education and bring the pupils into contact with a broad range of digital and electronic tools. Students also develop their abilities to identify problems and create opportunities for improvement, as well as working independently to develop solutions. Wissenschaft im Dialog, with the support of the Klaus Tschira Foundation, aims to improve digital learning in schools through Make Your School. In the 2019/2020 school year forty hackdays will take place at schools throughout Germany.
Make Your School is subject to scientific monitoring in order to ensure quality and that it meets current standards. The Technische Universität Braunschweig began monitoring Make Your School in February 2018. Francine Meyer is investigating the effectiveness of the hackdays at schools as part of her doctoral work, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Monika Taddicken in the Department of Communication and Media Science.
