Madeleine Flötotto receives FAU teaching award for innovative teaching 2025

7. September 2025

In May 2025, Madeleine Flötotto, research assistant and teacher educator at the Research and Teaching Unit Diversity Education and International Educational Research, received a University teaching award at FAU for a cooperation project with Frederik De Leare from HOWEST University Bruges/Belgium.
The “FAU Teaching Award for Innovative Teaching Concepts in the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciencies, and Theology” is awarded once a year and recognizes outstanding innovation in teaching. In 2025, Madeleine Flötotto received the award for the international SummerSchool-Project “The National within the International: Exploring what it means to be a teacher in Europe“ – an english-speaking Seminar in the Education Sciences in initial Teacher Education (General Pedagogy Module 2) with eTwinning for Future Teachers and short-term mobility to the cooperation partner HOWEST University Bruges/Belgium for 21 student teachers at FAU – including a visit to the European Parliament in Brussels and a back-visit of the Belgian international semester “We teach the World” at FAU . The SummerSchool Project was an innovative internationalized seminar funded by the project “FAU Teacher Education International”.

The hybrid SummerSchool project consisted of a 2 month digital exchange via eTwinning, a short term mobility to HOWEST Belgium ( 5 days) and a guest visit at FAU Germany (5 day). Student teachers were introduced to international and digital exchange via eTwinning for Future Teachers. In International Teams student teachers from Germany, Japan, Spain, and Malta discussed questions of national and European teacher identity, European Values, Multilingualism, and the prevention of extremism in national classrooms. School visits to a Belgian and a German school and guided tours through the European Parliament and the House of European History with Q&A sessions in Brussels gave great insights.
In international teams, the student teacher created workshops for teachers and experienced international team teaching in English by giving these workshops for teachers and seminar teachers at schools in the metropolitan area of Nuremberg/Germany and online for teacher educations all across Europe. Student teachers experienced themselves as valuable voice and contribution to international teacher exchange across different stages of teacher professionalization. The student teachers’ experiences were reflected from an international comparative perspective.
One participant said: „The SummerSchool project made me realized how enriching international cooperation is for the exchange of ideas and perceptions. This really motivated me as a teacher.“
The FAU Award Committee argued that the way in which self-reflection as (future) teacher in international and hybrid-digital exchange was fostered was exceptional and thus worthy of the “FAU teaching award for innovative teaching 2025”.

Congratulations Madeleine Flötotto (FAU Germany) – and project partner Frederik de Laere (HOWEST Belgium) , as well as all 30 student teachers involved.