The SchAU and SchAU ^plus projects in science lessons

Professionalisation of prospective teachers

^OLE+ is a project of the nationwide teacher training quality campaign. It aims to promote the professionalisation of prospective teachers. Modified curricula, modules and teaching-learning formats are developed, trialled and empirically monitored. In particular, student labs are an important element of extended practical integration.

The SchAU format was developed by the physics didactics working group: students in the early Bachelor's phase develop learning materials with physics research and problem-solving tasks for pupils. While the pupils conduct subject-related research, the students conduct subject-related didactic research. They investigate how the pupils' learning processes develop at three stations: The learning material is first used at school(two students work with three to five pupils) before the students visit an extracurricularSTEM learning location with the pupils. This could be a museum, a national park centre, a company or a waste incineration plant. As a third stop, the students visit the physiXS student laboratory at the university. The students reflect not only on the students' learning processes, but also on their own teaching behaviour and relate the two to each other. Reflecting on teaching behaviour helps students in the early study phase to rethink their career choice.

In the Master's phase, students use the SchAU ^plus format to research how their lessons stimulate pupils' thinking and learning processes and how these can be further promoted. To this end, the concept of backward planning (Richter, Komorek 2017) is combined with the lesson study method (Knoblauch 2017). In backward planning, students first decide which cognitive processes they want to stimulate before considering which student actions can trigger them and which teaching actions are ultimately necessary for this. In the lesson study, the hypothesis for which the planned lesson stands is tested. The lesson study makes weak points in the planning visible by means of student teaching research. This form of research-based learning has proven to be effective. Planning and reflection skills are required and encouraged.