On the 1st of December I received a very special and unique honour: together with my colleague Irina Zakharova we received the Berninghausen Prize for Outstanding Teaching 2021 from the University of Bremen in the category “Participatory Teaching”. The prize has been awarded annually since 1991. This year, a total of 125 academics were nominated. A committee made up of teaching staff, university staff, and students perused the submissions and put forward the winners. In addition to us, the economist Dr. Jan Harima and the psychology professor Dr. Nina Heinrichs were each awarded a student prize.

The justification for our prize states:

“Dr. Juliane Jarke and Irina Zakharova from the Faculty of Mathematics / Computer Science won over the jury with their concept for joint teaching and learning. In the “Participative Teaching” category, they were honored for the module “Participative Methods of Software Design.” The class was carried out digitally with team-teaching in the summer semester 2021. Students had full writing and access rights to the utilized platform. Additionally, each small group had their own board for preparation, organization, and communication. Previous class participants’ experiences were incorporated. The jury was impressed that dealing with specialist literature played a role in the final grade, as this is often something that does not receive enough consideration in computer sciences. The lecturers also met up directly with groups outside of video conferences in order to talk through their work. The students spoke their praise for the fact that the class was designed well in terms of content and didactics.”