Heterogeneity in Teacher Education from the Very Beginning

Applicant

Prof. Dr. Marcus Schütte
Faculty of Education, Institute of Educational Science, Chair of Primary School Pedagogy/Mathematics, Technische Universität Dresden

Prof. Dr. Funke
Faculty of Education, Institute of Educational Science, Professor of Educational Sciences with a focus on Quantitative Methods

Prof. Dr. Hermann Körndle
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (including Psychology), Department of Psychology, Institute of Educational and Developmental Psychology, Chair of Psychology of Teaching and Learning

Institution

TU Dresden

Duration

01.01.2016 – 30.06.2019

Funding volume

212,000 € (Quality Initiative Teacher Education, BMBF)

Initial situation

Schools as institutions have always tried to integrate, in age-homogeneous classes, social dimensions of heterogeneity such as gender, social background, culture/language as well as different psychological and physical conditions (in Germany initially in particular through shared primary school years). However, this motive of integration has, depending on historical and societal circumstances, been more or less subordinated. Therefore, evident processes of exclusion of pupils have occurred and continue to occur, which can potentially lead to institutional discrimination and result in reduced school performance and psycho-social problems. Equality of opportunity is thus disregarded as a goal, and heterogeneity is not perceived and used as enrichment. As a result, a considerable proportion of pupils learning in Germany grow up in homes that initially provide little educational support and a less cognitively stimulating environment, so that school-relevant prior knowledge and behaviour cannot be assumed from the outset, but must rather be established over time, especially through school, in order to be sustained. Teacher education precedes this development, since it influences pedagogical semantics and attitudes of prospective teachers and thus how they deal with heterogeneity. The Saxon educational system, with its high proportion of special-needs schools and the almost complete absence of integratively teaching schools after primary school, is, in comparison with other federal states, strongly vertically structured. For the future, however, it is foreseeable that more integrative schooling in more heterogeneous classes will increase in all types of schools in Saxony as well. In addition to the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, demographic developments in the Free State will also contribute to this, making it increasingly difficult to maintain a highly differentiated structure of the school system in peripheral regions. Compared in particular with western German federal states, the Saxon population is very homogeneous, especially in ethnic and cultural terms. When dealing with a heterogeneous student body, it is therefore not possible to draw on extensive everyday-life experiences with heterogeneity and diversity as a matter of course.

Aims

Inevitably, in the coming years in Saxony it will be a matter of enabling – contrary to pedagogical traditions and well-established attitudes among teachers in this federal state – learning and teaching in diversity, of experiencing heterogeneity as enrichment, and therefore of establishing internally differentiated, individualised forms of learning that do not select but enable participation for all through joint learning. The aim of the project is therefore to address heterogeneity in its dimensions as a task of teacher education at TU from the very beginning, in particular by:

• identifying obstacles, difficulties and reservations that argue against the implementation of internally differentiated, heterogeneous teaching-learning settings;
• sensitising students to the various dimensions of heterogeneity within the student body;
• qualifying students with regard to the possibilities of pedagogical concepts for dealing with heterogeneity, in particular when learning in a subject.

Approach

The project addresses the challenge of a heterogeneous student body for school and classroom practice in a fundamental way. Based on an empirical inventory of beliefs, attitudes and experiences with heterogeneity among prospective teachers and experienced teachers, a process of sensitisation is to be initiated. At the same time, diagnostic competencies and didactic expertise for the implementation of individualised learning in the subject are to be conveyed and a repertoire of teaching strategies established.

Work programme

Phase 1: Quantitative and qualitative survey to identify concepts and ideas (implicit theories) about heterogeneity as well as strategies for dealing with heterogeneity among teachers of different subjects and among students;

Phase 2: Conception of introductory and in-depth courses (social science and psychological perspectives on heterogeneity, diagnosis of different learning prerequisites, expansion of the teaching repertoire for dealing with diversity in the subject);

Phase 3: Trial of the courses and evaluation of the measures.

Dissemination plan

The planned survey studies provide an empirical foundation for dealing with the heterogeneity of pupils in initial and further teacher education. As part of the project, teaching formats are tested that are specifically tailored to the situation in Saxony and that can also be made available to further actors in the form of teaching and diagnostic materials.

Outlook

In the second funding period, the developed concepts, which had to prove themselves in a pilot phase, are to be structurally embedded in the existing module structures of teacher education at TU Dresden and offered as further training also for experienced teachers. This will involve both interdisciplinary and subject-specific differentiated engagement with heterogeneity in teaching. This process will be evaluated scientifically with quasi-experimental designs.