Pedagogy 2025

Abstract

‘Turning outwards’ by finding one’s own voice, reflect, being open to listen and embracing diversity is more vital than ever in the age of genAI – these competencies are essential for human encounters and the construction of communities of responsible global citizens. This presentation argues that transformative shifts that reconceptualize teaching and learning as dynamic, co-creative narrative processes are specifically apt to respond to this desideratum. The first step involves mapping these innovative transformations by reimagining teaching and learning designs (including e.g. learning objectives, methods and assessment), fundamentally through the lens of narratological concepts (such as narration/focalization or telling/showing). What does it mean to act as a storyteller in class? What happens when you turn into a listener to stories co-created with/by your students? Are all narrators reliable, and in which genres do we find ourselves proficient—utopian or dystopian? Foci include the relevance of diverse, multiperspective storytelling in hybrid learning settings addressing phenomena such as post-pandemic student absences, the necessity for supporting the students’ voicing (instead of silencing) and the collaborative design of practice-oriented learning journeys by genAI. Secondly, by combining evidence-based examples from three universities—encompassing both the humanities and natural sciences—we will highlight the scalability of this approach. It will be demonstrated that storytelling is intrinsically transdisciplinary, correlates with a broad range of future skills, and is – due to its flexibility and potential corelations with gamified teaching designs – not only very apt to be broadly disseminated but can easily act as a driving force in curricular innovation.