Shaping the future of teaching
With the funding approval for the "Find YOUR Way" project, the HSZG is embarking on the path to further innovations in the field of teaching.
Innovative Teaching as the Key
Working Together for Future-Oriented Teaching: Through the cross-campus and interdisciplinary teaching project “Find your way – with individual learning paths,” the faculties of Mechanical Engineering, Social Sciences, Managerial and Cultural Studies, and Natural and Environmental Sciences at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences (HSZG) are pooling their expertise to develop new approaches to personalized learning processes. Led by Prof. Dr. Martin Sturm, the project aims to actively involve students in shaping their individual learning paths and to provide targeted support in acquiring key future skills such as digital literacy, collaborative problem-solving, and reflective learning. Due to its university-wide strategic importance, the project is overseen by the Vice President for Education and Sustainability, Prof. Dr. Małgorzata Maćkowiak. The foundation is a digital learning process design that flexibly addresses diverse learning needs and enables new forms of student participation.
This innovative approach convinced the reviewers from the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education Teaching as part of the “Freiraum 2026” funding program. The positive funding decision confirms the HSZG’s strategic commitment to continuously improving the quality of teaching and providing students with the best possible support throughout their learning process. The project began on April 1, 2026, and will run through March 31, 2028. Over the next two years, the project aims to provide new impetus for personalized learning opportunities that specifically prepare students for the demands of a changing world of work.
With "Find your way," we are developing a scalable learning process design that enables individualized learning paths, makes competency development measurable, and transforms the university in a sustainable way toward a student-centered learning culture.
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Students as active co-creators
A central feature of the project is the "students as partners" approach. Students are not just learners, but are actively involved as co-designers in the development of the teaching formats. In interactive "creative pitches" and workshops, needs are identified and innovative solutions for the challenges of digital transformation are developed together with teaching staff and external practice partners.
The "Futureskill Learning Space"
At the heart of the project is the establishment of a "Futureskill Learning Space". This is a technologically supported learning ecosystem that:
- offers flexible learning hubs that can be adapted to heterogeneous learning needs.
- enables individual learning paths through the use of digital skills diagnostics and learning analytics.
- promotes interdisciplinary collaboration in order to optimally prepare students for complex professional requirements.
The piloting will take place in various STEM and GSW modules. The project will also be accompanied by special "competence boosts" for teaching staff to ensure the high quality of the new learning environments in the long term.
For me, "Find your way" is a real experimental space: we combine new didactic approaches with digital possibilities and create formats that can also be transferred to other degree programs and contexts.
”Sustainability and transfer
The concepts developed in the project will not remain hidden. A key objective is to provide various elements to promote transfer and sustainability in order to provide further impetus with the project results. This should provide an impetus for a sustainable transformation of the entire teaching-learning culture at the HSZG and beyond.
The team behind "Find your way":
First floor
1st floor
Funding Information:
This initiative was co-funded by the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education, a trust foundation administered by the Toepfer Stiftung GmbH.