HSZG Professor Sonja Schellhammer was awarded the Saxon Teaching Prize 2025 for her individual and forward-looking teaching.
Great honor for the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences: Prof. Dr. rer. medic. Sonja Schellhammer receives the Saxon Teaching Award 2025 in the category Universities of Applied Sciences. Science Minister Sebastian Gemkow presented the award at a ceremony at Chemnitz University of Technology on October 24, 2025.
The Saxon State Ministry of Science, Culture and Tourism has been awarding the Saxon Teaching Prize since 2014 in recognition of outstanding and innovative teaching concepts at the state's universities. The prize is awarded every two years and is endowed with a total of 25,000 euros. The focus of this year's competition was the individualization of teaching - in other words, approaches that take into account the different requirements and learning needs of students in a special way.
Science Minister Sebastian Gemkow emphasized at the award ceremony:
Excellent teaching thrives on creativity, passion and the attitude that learning is always a personal encounter. And it creates spaces in which everyone can develop in the best possible way. Our award winners have fulfilled this requirement in an outstanding way. They respond to the strengths and needs of students with great sensitivity, have developed concepts that open up new approaches to knowledge and use the potential of digital tools - for flexible, transparent and individual learning processes. They show what modern university teaching can look like.
”Prof. Schellhammer impressed the jury with her innovative, holistic teaching approach, in which she combines cross-cutting didactic topics such as sustainability, inclusion, digital didactics and project-based learning. This is particularly evident in the "Physics with Project Workshop" module on the Green Engineering course. Here, she combines theoretical principles with socially relevant issues such as energy efficiency or technology criticism - and creates learning spaces that challenge and support students individually.
Her teaching is deeply student-centered: Different prior knowledge and interests are not seen as a hurdle, but as a starting point for learning processes. In project-oriented work phases, students develop their own topics, receive continuous feedback and experience teaching as a collaborative process.
Prof. Schellhammer also uses gamification elements and digital tools to boost motivation, self-efficacy and interaction. With her sensitivity for linguistic and cultural diversity as well as inclusive learning, she creates approaches that have an impact far beyond her subject area.
The Rector of Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alexander Kratzsch, offered his warmest congratulations:
I am extremely pleased about this award. Prof. Schellhammer stands for teaching that takes place at eye level, takes individual educational biographies seriously and sees the diversity of our students as a strength. Her commitment shows how responsible and forward-looking university teaching can be. She is a role model for teaching that combines science, attitude and humanity.
”The teaching award not only recognizes the outstanding work of an individual lecturer, but also the HSZG's commitment to modern, individual and practice-oriented teaching that enables students to actively participate in social transformation.
The prize for exemplary committed teaching and particularly innovative and sustainable teaching concepts at Saxony's universities was selected by an eleven-member jury. In addition to Prof. Schellhammer, the following were honored: Junior Professor Nora Huxmann from the TU Dresden, Prof. Clemens von Wedemeyer and Carsten Möller from the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, Prof. Dr. Philipp Seitz (Duale Hochschule Breitenbrunn) and Johann Meyer from the University of Leipzig.
