Pixel International Conferences

Renewable energy (RE) is a highly dynamic work and research field expected to contribute to sustainable energy systems on global scale. While the physical laws governing the energy systems are long well understood, vivid discussions on suitable assessment methods and the subsequent conclusions of the widespread implementation of different RE systems flourish both in the scientific and implementation arenas.

In order to achieve a sustainable transformation of the energy supply systems on regional, national and global scales an integrated knowledge about the ecological, economic and social consequences of the new energy systems will be needed – on learners’ side (later decision maker and stakeholder) as well as on teachers’ side. In this context, to deal with complexity, incomplete knowledge bases and risks is essential for all actors in order to make informed and sustainable decisions. Thus the integration of inter- and transdisciplinary competences into the learning and teaching process, such as the meta-knowledge on the validity of acquired knowledge or the ability to continuously reflect on the impacts of a particular system becomes of fundamental importance.

But teaching these competences goes far beyond traditional, mainly content-oriented university teaching approaches in the natural sciences. Participative, competence-oriented and student-centered methods are required instead.

While these innovative approaches can be found in many relevant concept papers on the European level, its real implementation in the field of natural sciences and engineering university education is rather scarce. The university as institution only reacts very slowly to the educational challenges outlined. Trials of “best practice” modules characterise an unsatisfying situation where teaching and knowledge have left the disciplinary boundaries. As long as teachers lack the support by centers for research on higher education at their own institution and a corresponding general action plan they are forced to rely on themselves, their colleagues and results from teaching and learning research. To develop solutions in such a context finding or creating alliances for exchange on teaching experiences and new learner-centred teaching methods might be of great help.

The paper shares the results and experiences form a 3-day workshop on Future Renewable Energy Programs held by the University of Oldenburg in September 2015. The workshop was organised to foster discussion and exchange with teaching colleagues in the energy field in Germany and Europe. The relevance of the proposed teaching approaches and their particular importance for the RE field as well as current deficits preventing their implementation are analysed based on a comprehensive literature review. From this empirical and theoretical approaches, the paper identifies lines of action for encouraging and promoting the necessary shift to learner-centred, creative and cooperative teaching approaches in the field of RE.