Evaluation of the Pedagogical Workshop for Learning: Individually and Together! in Brandenburg

The extent to which teaching changes in the participating schools is analysed.

Project Description

The Pedagogical Workshop for Learning: Individually and Together! offered by the German School Academy is a school development measure and teacher training scheme that targets a productive approach to heterogeneity in the classroom. The scientific evaluation assesses how instruction changes at the schools participating in the Pedagogical Workshop for Learning.

The Pedagogical Workshop for Learning

The Pedagogical Workshop for Learning: Individually and Together! is organised by the German School Academy. It picks up on a central issue of contemporary instructional and school development processes, i.e. the growing heterogeneity of student populations that challenges all schools – regardless of school type – to productively dealing with differences. Therefore, daily instruction shall be designed in a way that enables students to perform at their individual best. The workshop focuses on the joint production of favourable instructional arrangements and lesson units. Participants are not only invited to reflect on learning and teaching, but they are also meant to implement joint reflections in exemplary lesson plans. The Pedagogical Workshop for Learning consists of two stages, each spanning a full school year. During the first phase, workshop activities are run outside the schools, comprising five elements. Between three and five teachers from each participating school will be involved. Process advisers are trained in parallel to the workshop to consolidate the work. The second phase focuses on internal school developments. Here, the process advisers collaborate in teams with the entire teaching staff of a participating school, for up to five days a week.

Evaluation of the Pedagogical Workshop for Learning

The evaluation focuses on assessing in how far instruction changes at the schools participating in the Pedagogical Workshop for Learning. In order to obtain a comprehensive picture regarding barriers and conditions of success for possible changes in instruction, all participants in the measures will be included in the evaluation.

Teaching Staff and School Principal Questionnaires

An online questionnaire will target teaching staff and principals of participating schools at three times: at the beginning of Stage I (autumn 2017), following Stage I (Summer 2018) and following Stage  II (Summer 2019). Outcomes of these assessments will be fed back to the schools after completion of the workshop. In addition, the teachers who took part in workshop activities during Stage I will be asked to complete a short feedback questionnaire on each of the elements. These feedback results will immediately be used by trainer tandems to optimise workshop activities.

Lesson Observation and Student Questionnaire

To gain insights into instruction practices, lessons will be observed and students will be questioned at selected schools during Stage I and at the end of Stage II. Outcomes will be immediately fed back to the participating schools and teachers, so that they can be used for instructional development purposes.

Interviews with Process Advisers

In addition to online questionnaires in Stage I, interviews with process advisers will be conducted in Stage II.

Cooperations

The evaluation study on the Pedagogical Workshop for Learning is jointly conducted with the German School Academy.

Project Details

Status:
Completed Projects
Department: Educational Governance
Duration:
01/2017 – 12/2020
Funding:
External funding