TikTok and the like are shaping the everyday lives of many young people with short and entertaining videos. Paderborn University has recognised this potential and has been cooperating with ‘DigitalSchoolStory’ (DSS) since the summer semester of 2024. The non-profit initiative, which was honoured by Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz for its exemplary commitment as part of the ‘startsocial’ competition, has developed a learning method in which lesson content is translated into creative short videos in TikTok format. In two seminars led by Prof Dr Sven Lindberg, Professor of Clinical Developmental Psychology at Paderborn University, students prepared scientific studies in small groups. They received support and feedback from successful content creators such as ‘Papa Basti’ and ‘sam_socialvibez’. The best videos have now been selected and awarded prizes at the AStA city campus.
Paderborn University is the first university to use DSS in the teacher training programme in the field of special education. The students researched real research results, systematically prepared the sometimes very complex subject content and converted the information into videos lasting a maximum of 90 seconds. ‘By telling their own little stories, the students themselves and others can understand the content much better. That really is a great benefit,’ says Lindberg happily.
The skills they learn not only help the students in their studies, but also in their future careers. ‘The exciting thing is that the students connect to the everyday world of young people. As future teachers, this gives them completely different points of contact with their pupils later on,’ says Nina Mülhens, co-founder of DSS, who accompanied the students in the seminars.
‘It really helped us to prepare the content in the seminar in a completely different way. Picking out a quintessence from studies is ultimately even more sustainable than always working through texts dryly,’ say Julian Schmid and Jannik Schuff from the winning team, which was honoured with the first “Best Video” award by their fellow students in a live vote.
This text has been translated automatically.
