608
S. M. Weber
In the pilot phase, the Train-the-Trainer concept addressed the whole first semester
cohort of students of roundabout 200 students starting a BA in Education. One third
of this cohort either applied or was suggested by their peers for becoming trainers
in sustainability education. They were trained in order to become trainers (called
‘Coaches’) for the two remaining third of the cohort of student newcomers (called
‘Peers’). Within this “bottom-up approach” of self-organized small groups, these socalled multipliers showed and told others about the acquired methods of transitional
support and design skills to their fellow students. With triadic coaching, students
were enabled to master their institutional transition by entering Higher Education
as “newcomer innovators” (Revsbaek 2015). The program had special awareness
for students with a non-academic background (Lareau 2002) in order to support
self-guidance towards a ‘sense of possibility’ instead of a ‘sense of constraint’.
The program ‘NetworkCoaching FutureDesigner’ was designed as a two-hour
weekly realized program. This format interconnected formal, nonformal and informal
educational levels, insofar it systematically combined lecture, training and students’
self organizing groups. Program content was linked to a lecture with the title “From
institutionalized inequalities towards innovation potentials within the educational
system”.
Student ‘trainers’, funded by tutorial contracts, became active as MA/BA student
tandems, each of them training groups 10–12 ‘Coaches’. ‘Coaches’ participated in
weekly trainings and transmitted training contents of the weekly trainings to two or
three of their ‘peers’. Network 146 ‘Coaches’ deliver the program content to two or
three other ‘peers’ of their cohort 147 throughout the whole semester.
The program rationale was grounded in the approach of education for sustainable
development (de Haan 2008), which defined the programs learning goals (Weber et al.
2018). The program connected transition theoretical, inequality perspectives with
approaches to social innovation and future creation and like this integrated different
theoretical frameworks like transitions, diversity orientation and social innovation.
According to students’ transition into university over the first semester, the program
addressed four core-themes of Transition-Ability, Habitus-Reflexivity, Sense of Possibility and Design-Ability. Like this, the program wished to address and reflect
symbolic and cultural orders as well as discoursive horizons into Higher Education.
3.1 Transition-Ability
In the first months of their studies, students’ are in a transitional phase (Friedebertshäuser 1992). The program takes up and focuses on supporting transition-ability.
Students are encouraged and trained for creative approaches to reflexivity and towards
understanding their own biographical transitions within institutional settings. Transitions are theorized as collective transitions (Bourdieu and Passeron 1971) and
biographical-institutional transitions are regarded as social ‘trajectories’, embedded
in societal structures (Schwarz et al. 2015).
S. M. Weber
In the pilot phase, the Train-the-Trainer concept addressed the whole first semester
cohort of students of roundabout 200 students starting a BA in Education. One third
of this cohort either applied or was suggested by their peers for becoming trainers
in sustainability education. They were trained in order to become trainers (called
‘Coaches’) for the two remaining third of the cohort of student newcomers (called
‘Peers’). Within this “bottom-up approach” of self-organized small groups, these socalled multipliers showed and told others about the acquired methods of transitional
support and design skills to their fellow students. With triadic coaching, students
were enabled to master their institutional transition by entering Higher Education
as “newcomer innovators” (Revsbaek 2015). The program had special awareness
for students with a non-academic background (Lareau 2002) in order to support
self-guidance towards a ‘sense of possibility’ instead of a ‘sense of constraint’.
The program ‘NetworkCoaching FutureDesigner’ was designed as a two-hour
weekly realized program. This format interconnected formal, nonformal and informal
educational levels, insofar it systematically combined lecture, training and students’
self organizing groups. Program content was linked to a lecture with the title “From
institutionalized inequalities towards innovation potentials within the educational
system”.
Student ‘trainers’, funded by tutorial contracts, became active as MA/BA student
tandems, each of them training groups 10–12 ‘Coaches’. ‘Coaches’ participated in
weekly trainings and transmitted training contents of the weekly trainings to two or
three of their ‘peers’. Network 146 ‘Coaches’ deliver the program content to two or
three other ‘peers’ of their cohort 147 throughout the whole semester.
The program rationale was grounded in the approach of education for sustainable
development (de Haan 2008), which defined the programs learning goals (Weber et al.
2018). The program connected transition theoretical, inequality perspectives with
approaches to social innovation and future creation and like this integrated different
theoretical frameworks like transitions, diversity orientation and social innovation.
According to students’ transition into university over the first semester, the program
addressed four core-themes of Transition-Ability, Habitus-Reflexivity, Sense of Possibility and Design-Ability. Like this, the program wished to address and reflect
symbolic and cultural orders as well as discoursive horizons into Higher Education.
3.1 Transition-Ability
In the first months of their studies, students’ are in a transitional phase (Friedebertshäuser 1992). The program takes up and focuses on supporting transition-ability.
Students are encouraged and trained for creative approaches to reflexivity and towards
understanding their own biographical transitions within institutional settings. Transitions are theorized as collective transitions (Bourdieu and Passeron 1971) and
biographical-institutional transitions are regarded as social ‘trajectories’, embedded
in societal structures (Schwarz et al. 2015).