Sharing insights on reconstruction—including through virtual means—with Syrian scholarship recipients: ZML’s blended learning expertise for the DAAD’s “Leadership for Syria” program

  • startdate:

    November 2016

  • enddate:

    July 2017

The DAAD program Leadership for Syria (LfS) was one of the largest German academic education and training programs funded as part of long-term foreign policy initiatives of the German government. It not only enabled 190 Syrian scholarship holders from the natural sciences, engineering and medicine to continue their academic careers at German universities. With a compulsory accompanying program in political and administrative science, it also aimed to equip the master's and doctoral students with the tools to take on leadership responsibility in their devastated home country and - it is hoped - make a lasting contribution to the subsequent reconstruction of Syria. The Center for Technology-Enhanced Learning (ZML) at KIT contributed its online expertise to the accompanying program, which was supported by the Academy for Continued Scientific Education at the University of Konstanz.

Virtual space already played an important role in the selection of scholarship holders for the LfS program, which was launched in October 2014: using an internet-based process in combination with personal interviews on site, the DAAD selected the 190 master's and doctoral students accepted into the program from over 5,000 applications according to the criteria of academic excellence. Applications were also possible directly from Syria or neighboring countries - for example from refugee camps.

As a result of the program launched in 2014, scholarship holders studied or completed their doctorates at 49 different university locations in Germany in 2016 - a challenge for the accompanying program advertised by the DAAD and funded by the Federal Foreign Office and the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. In June 2016, the DAAD was impressed by the content concept of the application from the University of Konstanz, which was developed with the e-learning experts from the ZML. It offered an optimal combination of face-to-face and e-learning phases in a virtual space.

The Academy for Academic Continuing Education at the University of Konstanz (AWW) and the Center for Technology-Enhanced Learning at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, with its many years of e-learning expertise, developed a modular blended learning concept based on the compiled contributions to the key content areas of 'promoting a democratic understanding of society', 'understanding sustainable economic policy' and 'personal action competence'.

The content compiled by the Scientific Director of the accompanying program Professor Wolfgang Seibel was taught by 21 lecturers from the fields of political and administrative science, economics and psychology at the University of Konstanz. The ZML took over the advice for the lecturers and tutors for the realization of the online parts. This included the supervision of the online forums, the implementation of webinars or the creation of learning materials. In addition, the ZML produced learning videos

on various topics.

Funded with 10.2 million euros from the Federal Foreign Office and 1.5 million euros from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the program, which was supported by half a dozen advisors from the field in addition to the lecturers from Constance, also served to build networks, from which the participants can also benefit after their return home.

Through the blended learning combination, the scientific expertise of the lecturers and the input of the participants were permanently linked and networking activities for new perspectives of the Syrian scholarship holders were promoted in a targeted and sustainable manner - according to Daniel Weichsel, ZML Managing Director.

After the kickoff of the accompanying program at the University of Konstanz on 11 November 2016, the online part of the accompanying program started on 17 November 2016 with the webinar by Cindy Wittke: "Making and Implementing Peace Agreements and Political Settlements". At the end of July 2017, the accompanying program concluded with a final face-to-face phase.

Currently, the actors of the LfS project, the AWW, the ZML, the DAAD and the Federal Foreign Office a further development of the program. In this context ZML Managing Director, Daniel Weichsel, together with Wolfgang Seibel, Barbara D'Errico and Ulrich Wacker from the University of Konstanz, presented the Leadership for Syria experiences in two workshops at the Learning for Syria, which took place from 14 to 16 March 2018. March 14-16, 2018 DAAD conference "A lot accomplished and yet only at the beginning? Successes and challenges in the integration of refugees into higher education" at the Kalkscheune in Berlin. In addition to the content concept, the blended learning approach and the implementation of the accompanying program,


the creators of the accompanying program presented the differentiated evaluation concept.

In the "World Café" format, the speakers then discussed with the participants whether and how elements of the accompanying program can be implemented for programs with other target groups - such as refugees studying at German universities or scholarship holders from crisis regions.


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