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Faculty of Education
Facultyof Education

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II. Profession-theoretical approach

Starting point:

From a theory-of-professions perspective, it becomes clear that uncertainty is inherent in any teaching–learning process, even beyond the forms deliberately brought about through didactic and methodological design. Learning and education are constructive processes that are highly individual and therefore unpredictable. This “technology deficit” of teaching makes uncertainty a central dimension of teachers’ professional action. If uncertainty constitutes a core element of teacher professionalism, teacher education must ask how it can prepare future teachers for it.

Teacher education faces challenges similar to those of schools:

  • student heterogeneity is increasing,
  • diverse biographical pathways lead to different approaches to teacher education, and
  • teaching in teacher education operates between the poles of “critical discourse in educational science” and “instructional, practically normative modes of teaching.”

Within this field of tension, suitable formats for teacher education must be developed that enable reflection on uncertainty and help prepare for it.

Research interest:

The research interest in this sub-project is

to reconstruct how uncertainty appears as a generic and subject-specific demand on professionals,
which problems of action emerge from it, and
which individual and contextual resources enable its productive handling—and thus successful professionalization.
In the medium term, transfer measures (e.g., professional development courses for teachers) will be developed, building on the participants’ intensive activities in this research field.

Research questions:

Which uncertainties arise from subject-specific/subject-didactic as well as general pedagogical requirements of teaching?
How do these uncertainties manifest in concrete classroom practice, and how do teachers deal with them?
How can teachers be prepared for constitutive and future uncertainties through higher-education didactic designs?

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