DH Lab

Management: Professor Dr. habil. Sander MünsterResearch assistants: Dora Luise Münster, Rebekka Dietz

Teaching and learning lab of the Chair of Digital Humanities at Friedrich Schiller University Jena

At the DHLabor, the school laboratory for Digital Humanities at FSU Jena, aspiring educators learn how to create digital-supported teaching programs on cultural-historical topics and test them with learners.

The objectives are to

  • Establishment and research of digital laboratories and methods within the humanities.
  • Transfer of digital competencies to university and school students.
  • Providing a testing ground for future teachers, as well as the development and provision of instructional concepts.

Each winter semester, interested students from all faculties are trained as tutors during a block seminar.(https://www.gw.uni-jena.de/13485/lehre de).

In the summer semester, they are given the opportunity to work as student assistants, implementing their teaching programs in extracurricular courses. These take place in the afternoons, on weekends, or during school holidays, both in the lab and at partner institutions. Students receive scientific guidance throughout the entire process—from planning and implementation to the final evaluation of the courses.

From 2022 to 2025, 14 courses were developed and conducted by 8 students on the premises of the professorship, elementary and community schools, a youth center, and a library. 170 students aged 7-16 participated.

Pictures

Pictures: F. Staacke · S. Hopf

schools

facilities

The DHLabor is financed through third-party funded projects.

2022 – 2024    Lehr-Lern-Hub: Digital History (DHLabor), gefördert von der Stiftung Innovation in der 

                          Hochschullehre https://stiftung-hochschullehre.de/projekt/dhlabor/External link

2025            4Memory@School - Lehr-Lern-Labor: Digital History Data, gefördert von NFDI4MemoryIncubator

                      Funds https://www.gw.uni-jena.de/13480/forschung de - DFG NFDI4Memory: https://www.nfdi.de/konsortien-nfdi4memory/External link

2025 - 2027     DH Eco Lab Lehr-Lern-Labor: Digital Environmental Education, gefördert von der Deutschen

                          Bundesstiftung Umwelt https://www.dbu.de/projektdatenbank/39876-01/External link

The thematic focus of the DHLabor has so far been on the history of Jena, with the aim of motivating children and young people to engage creatively with the cultural heritage, personalities, and historical events of their hometown based on primary sources. To this end, various digital methods such as web-based source research, the creation of 3D models, and the use of eyewitness interviews were taught, and digital skills in dealing with social media posts and AI-generated content were promoted. Since 2025, the range of topics has been expanded and children and young people are now motivated and guided to engage with history, cultural heritage, historical data, and climate change in an interactive and multi-perspective way using digital means.

Since 2022, 14 courses have been developed, whose teaching concepts and materials are available on public platforms such as https://schulportal.de/External link and https://mundo.schule/External link, also be made available to other teachers:

Selection of courses already held

Selected student results will be presented long-term as points of interest in virtual city tours in the applications https://4dbrowser.urbanhistory4d.org/External link and https://4dcity.org/introExternal link 

The results of the DHLab's accompanying scientific research are shared and exchanged with the expert community at international conferences.

Publications (selection)

Dietz, R.: Digitale Vermittlung in geisteswissenschaftlichen Fächern an Schulen: Zwischenstände und Bedarfsanalyse. GeNeMe 2024 (2024)

Hopf, S.: Self-Assesment of digital literacy-courses with pupils. Interim project report Teaching-Learning Hub: Digital History (2024)

Münster, D.L., Münster, S.: Designing Learning Tasks and Scenarios on Digital History for a Research Lab for Pupils. In: Münster, S., Pattee, A., Kröber, C., Niebling, F. (eds) Research and Education in Urban History in the Age of Digital Libraries. UHDL 2023. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1853. Springer, Cham, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38871-2_13External link (2023)

Muenster, D. L., Muenster, S., Dietz, R.: Digital history education for pupils. First steps  towards a teaching learning lab. Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci. https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLVIII-M-2-2023/1105/2023/isprs-archives-XLVIII-M-2-2023-1105-2023.pdfExternal link (2023)

Münster, D. L., Münster, S., Dietz, R.: Heritage education projects by university students for pupils: Digital and data-driven learning in a humanities teaching-learning lab, Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., XLVIII-M-9-2025, 1037–1042, https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLVIII-M-9-2025/1037/2025/External link (2025)

Münster, D. L., Münster, S., Dietz, R., Staacke, F.: Urban history projects by university students for school pupils. 
The use of Minecraft and ChatGPT in a humanities teaching and learning laboratory (2025, in preparation).