The overarching goal is the research-based creation, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of video-based training concepts and modules for digitally supported teaching in the participating subjects German, German as a second language, English, French, Spanish, geography, economics and chemistry (with a focus on technical language) as well as on the overarching topic of education for sustainable development. For the modules, task formats with teaching and explanatory videos for the use of digitally supported teaching resources in subject lessons are created and used as effective, practice-oriented training elements. This is done in continuous consultation with those responsible for practical teacher training.
The project is part of the “learn:digital transfer centre“
One of the main educational goals is to acquire verbalized knowledge, to pass it on and to be able to critically examine the transfer of knowledge. With growing content complexity and higher educational age, this requires increasingly complex linguistic skills and, with this dynamic, has so far represented a gap in teaching and support for heterogeneous learning groups, especially with regard to comprehension-supporting connective language resources as characteristics of explanatory quality.
The aim of the project is to provide an exemplary language support architecture based on
existing findings, which
a) can be applied to all stages of education and subject content
is transferable,
b) enables continuous individualized (educational) language support with exemplary inclusion of the native/first language Russian and
c) uses intermedia approaches.
Using the example of the climate and energy discourse, which is significant in the real world, it is explained for the elementary, primary and secondary levels how an information pool can be created for different age groups, language acquisition levels and learning locations that is adaptable in terms of content, language and situation, which is used by learners first receptively, then productively and finally reflectively as a resulting product pool. The language acquisition-sensitive support is realized through continuously usable language didactic tools
The project is part of the “Meta project: Language education in the immigration society“
To promote writing competence, writing motivation, and social participation, our project team will carry out a classroom intervention and lead an afterschool writing program at ten elementary schools with approximately 1,000 third and fourth graders with a waitlist control group design. Psychometric questionnaires, test data, and sociometric data will be collected longitudinally at multiple time points to examine effectiveness. This data will be supplemented by interviews with teachers. Data will be evaluated quantitatively (multilevel models) and qualitatively (qualitative content analysis). Based on formative and summative evaluation results, adaptations of the intervention and implementation will be made to optimize impact in a second intervention cycle. The final findings will be shared via research platforms and the final intervention will be made available to schools through a variety of means.
The project is part of the “Meta project: Language education in the immigration society“
Reading is a central prerequisite for acquiring knowledge in all subjects and an essential basis for social participation. However, many pupils find it difficult to read texts fluently and to extract meaning from them. This is where the research project on the systematic promotion of reading fluency and reading strategies comes in.
What are the aims of the study?
Implementation of the reading promotion program “The Reading Athlete”
The first goal is to provide teachers with a program for differentiated reading promotion in the classroom. With the “Reading Athlete”, a program was developed that offers suitable methods and texts depending on the child’s learning level. In this way, children can be picked up at the appropriate level for them. The concept is based on support measures that have been proven to be effective.
The “Reading Athlete” includes
- the syllable-based reading slalom method to promote reading accuracy
- the sound-based reading method Reading Sprint to promote reading speed
- the strategy-oriented reading canoe to promote reading comprehension
Investigation of the conditions for success
The second aim is to investigate which conditions are particularly conducive to using the program in the classroom. This provides important insights into how training concepts can be transferred into practice.
Evaluation of the effectiveness of the training
Finally, the extent to which the reading skills of the pupils participating in the training improve and how effective the program is rated by teachers will be investigated.
Educational research at the University of Münster is characterised by the broad academic spectrum of a comprehensive university which is one of the largest centres for teacher education in Germany. This research is based on the consistent interdisciplinary linking of educational science and subject-specific didactics. Projects based at the University of Münster are notably practice-oriented and systematically analyse transfer and implementation processes. The Zentrum für Lehrkräftebildung (ZLB) coordinates the interplay of educational science and subject-specific didactics across disciplines and departments. Educational research at the University of Münster aims to investigate the fundamentals of general and subject-specific learning and teaching, develop evidence-based concepts to leverage educational potentials, and evaluate and transfer these innovations for implementation.
Key areas of work and services:
- Fundamentals of Teaching and Learning: The basics of general and subject-specific learning and teaching are explored in diverse projects conducted by the didactics disciplines.
- Development and Evaluation of Educational Programmes: Innovative concepts and materials are developed and evaluated to promote competencies across the whole spectrum of academic educational goals.
- Transfer: A hallmark of the majority of our projects is a close cooperation with school practice partners and a focus on the transfer and implementation of evidence-based, innovative concepts. This research is supported by high-level infrastructure, including several video portals, practice and teaching-learning laboratories, and collaborations with professional development platforms.
- Professional Development: The dissemination of research findings occurs, among other means, through professional development offerings, which are themselves the subject of transfer and implementation research. Educational science at the University of Münster collaborates with the Münster District Government, the NRW Institute QUA-LiS, and the NRW Ministry of Education, for instance, through the NRW State Competence Centre for Individual Support (lif).
- Teacher Education: Research activities also encompass the field of teacher education. This involves a wide range of competencies, including subject-specific, didactic, and pedagogical professional knowledge as well as motivational, volitional, and social skills
Language plays a central role in learning at school – both as a communicative prerequisite and as a learning medium and learning objective. At the same time, it also represents a central dimension of heterogeneity. However, teachers often lack the time to support pupils with very different language learning needs individually in their acquisition of language skills. The use of new digital technologies, such as AI-based systems, offers the opportunity to constructively address the linguistic heterogeneity of learners in the context of participation and equal opportunities.
Natural language processing (NLP) applications such as ChatGPT or DeepL are currently developing extremely dynamically and have recently made great progress in the linguistically correct translation of texts and in AI-supported machine text production. The use of such systems therefore has the potential to support teachers in designing individualised language learning opportunities for pupils, for example.
Appropriate professionalisation concepts are needed to prepare teachers for the competent use of AI-based systems in schools and subject lessons. The joint project is therefore developing target group-specific information and qualification programmes that not only impart knowledge about the opportunities and potential of AI-based systems, but also address fears and reservations as well as concrete, factual limits and problems of using AI in the school context.
The joint project will specifically highlight the possibilities of individual feedback for pupils through NLP as well as the possible applications of intelligent tutorial systems and social robots. It also focuses on reflecting on the ethical, legal and social implications of using AI-supported systems in the school context.
Connection to practice, transfer and implementation
The transfer of the developed professionalisation offers for the use of AI-based systems in language teaching into teacher training and thus also into school practice is a central goal of the project network. The concepts are being developed in close collaboration with the cooperating state institutes in Berlin-Brandenburg, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. In addition, the developed concepts are to be embedded in the university teacher training programme. In this context, a transfer conference on the topic of AI for university teaching in teacher training programmes will take place at the University of Potsdam in 2025.
The concepts developed will be made available in the form of Open Educational Resources (OER) to enable the modular professionalisation courses to be implemented beyond the participating federal states. The sustainable transfer into practice is also supported by Zukunft Digitale Bildung gGmbH, the Forum Bildung Digitalisierung and the KI-Campus as transfer partners.
The aims of DigiProMIN are the research-based development of professionalization modules for the design of digitally supported STEM lessons, the identification of effective possibilities for the use of digital media in further education and training and the design and implementation of a transfer strategy at various levels.
The professionalization modules developed in the network take digitality into account in different ways. Firstly, further and continuing education measures are being designed to (further) qualify teachers of mathematics, computer science and natural sciences for teaching with digital media (“professionalizing teachers for digital media”). On the one hand, these have been developed specifically for the subjects mentioned, while on the other hand they also cover cross-curricular teaching and learning approaches, e.g. for subject teaching. The professionalization modules are related to specific digital teaching materials and tools and are intended to enable teachers to conduct comprehension-oriented, cognitively activating and adaptive lessons with digital media. The focus here is on the development of a coherent range of lessons rather than the use of individual digital tools.
Secondly, it examines how digital media can be used sensibly for the further and continuing education of teachers by developing and implementing digitally supported further and continuing education measures – using virtual reality, simulations and online platforms (“Professionalizing teachers with digital media”).
Connection to practice, transfer and implementation
The professionalization modules are developed in consultation with the specialist managers of the state institutes. They are the subject of the network’s multidimensional transfer and implementation strategy.
- The material transfer and implementation strategy consists of preparing the results achieved in the project (professionalization modules, digitally supported teaching materials and concepts for digitally supported further education and training) as Open Educational Resources (OER) and making them digitally available nationwide. To this end, existing platforms such as LERNEN.Cloud and Clearing House Unterricht will be networked and expanded.
- The personal transfer and implementation strategy refers on the one hand to the integration of the modules developed in the project into structured subject-specific or STEM-related further education and training programs of the countries participating in the network as well as into co-constructively designed networks (as professional learning communities of teachers). In doing so, the network is guided by the activities of the German Center for Mathematics Teacher Education (DZLM) as a possible blueprint for a learning:digital STEM competence center.
- Finally, a systemic transfer and implementation strategy will be implemented by supporting cross-phase cooperation, including the qualification of multipliers and supra-regional cooperation. The systemic strategy also includes the provision of control-relevant knowledge by developing and empirically validating instruments for recording the digitalization-related skills of teachers.
The systemic strategy is being tested as an example in three federal states in cooperation with the respective state institutes and quality institutions. These are Bavaria with the Akademie für Lehrerfortbildung und Personalführung (ALP) and the Staatsinstitut für Schulqualität und Bildungsforschung (ISB), Brandenburg with the Landesinstitut für Schule und Medien Berlin-Brandenburg (LISUM) and the Ministerium für Bildung, Jugend und Sport (MBJS, Referat 45) and Schleswig-Holstein with the Institut für Qualitätsentwicklung an Schulen (IQSH).
Art, music and sport (KuMuS) are important forms of expression for children and young people that are changing in the course of increasing digitalisation. With adaptive teaching, teachers can specifically address heterogeneous learning requirements and individually promote the development of skills in increasingly digitalised movement, design and interaction practices. Digital technologies provide innovative opportunities for this.
In order to exploit this didactic potential and realise adaptive, activity-based digital innovations in the classroom, teachers must be qualified and well trained. The question therefore arises as to which digitalisation-related professional skills KuMuS teachers need. Based on the fundamental assumption that professional competences are not acquired through the schematic application of explicit knowledge, but rather through testing, practising and in-depth action in the reflective examination of technical and instructional issues (Hapke & Cramer 2020, Hermann et al. 2021), the project is also dedicated to the question of what a corresponding further training concept could look like. The central question for the objectives pursued by the DIE in the KuMuS-ProNeD project network is therefore: What skills do teachers need and how can they be qualified to realise digitally supported adaptive teaching?
The aim of the joint project is to establish an integrative overall concept for teacher training in art, music and sport in the form of three interdisciplinary and cross-phase networks (further training, teaching development and counselling, Future Innovation Hub).
The joint project aims to develop further training formats for the use of digital learning environments and teaching scenarios (e.g. through the use of video analyses and tutorials, apps, devices, social media, blended learning, etc.) to promote skills that initiate characteristic (post)digital practices in art, music and sport, use them for teaching-learning processes and address them in the form of critical debate.
Teachers should develop professional competences in order to use current and future digital technologies for the adaptive promotion of subject-specific and digital competences in KuMuS lessons in a didactically sound manner.
The specialised information service “Educational Science and Educational Research” (Fachinformationsdienst Erziehungswissenschaft und Bildungsforschung) renders a contribution to a supply of scientific information, across locations in Germany. It aims at delivering the scientific resources required by education scientists for their particular research needs quickly and directly – preferably in digital format. The Information Centre for Education and the Research Library for the History of Education at DIPF collaborate closely with three other co-operation partners and the pertinent community in developing services with a priority on the following disciplines:
- Education science
- Educational research
- Subject didactics
- Higher education research
- Research on textbooks and educational media
- History of education
FID services have largely been integrated into the German Education Portal, which the project partners are supporting in order to create a comprehensive search and documentation area and subject-related service portal.
The specialized information service FID is monitored by an advisory board that brings together subject-specific and librarian expertise, and usage is continually being evaluated.
The international network “In Search of the Good Teacher” brings together researchers from Canada, the USA, the Netherlands, Germany, England and Australia. The network is funded by the European Association of Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) and coordinated by DIPF and the University of York.
Theoretical development: Up to now, disparate lines of research on teacher quality have existed independently of each other. The network now aims to bring these lines of research together for future research.
Methodological development: Only a few standardized instruments measuring teacher quality in international contexts exist. In this network, researchers work jointly on further improvement and validation. In the spirit of Open Science these standardized instruments will be made available to the research community.
Interdisciplinarity: The networks focus lies on interdisciplinarity. Questions about “good” teachers may need input from different fields such as psychology, educational science, or experts in subject matter.
Practical impact: These findings can contribute to the creation of effective teacher education:
- Teacher selection: Who should enter the teaching profession? Which features should one look for when recruiting teachers?
- Teacher training and continuing education: How important are aspects such as subject-matter knowledge or motivation? How can they be fostered?
Project Objectives: The aim of the research group is two-fold: First, it links the theoretical approaches in a collective model. Second, establishing new research connections. This is done both through the sharing and advancing teacher assessment instruments, and through joint work on existing study data and the planning of new cooperative studies that allow for a high degree of generalization.
