The Department of Art Education and Art Mediation assumes that the difference between knowledge and ability or theory and practice is essential for the actions of art teachers. According to this assumption, professional action is characterised by the fact that stocks of theoretical and experiential knowledge as well as elements of the professional repertoire of action are repeatedly conveyed in practice in a case- and situation-sensitive combination. If one follows this thesis, then the actions of art teachers are independent, creative actions under constant testing, which can be understood as a reflected routine that is open to the future and thus potentially revisable and transformable.

At university, patterns of action cannot be practised or even trained and irrefutable, theoretical knowledge cannot be learnt. What can be achieved in university art teacher training is the reflection of practice in the medium of theory. This makes it possible to discuss the contradictions, structural problems and requirements of teaching practice, which are not usually directly observable, as well as promoting a reflective, case-appropriate approach to abstract theoretical knowledge. The main focus of the art education degree programme is therefore the initial foundation of reflexivity, which is a central element of art education professionalism. This reflexivity should enable students to recognise the complexity of art teaching. In the university primacy of theory, an examination of art teaching practice should take place, through which professionalisation processes should be initiated.

An essential feature of a reflective and critical art teacher education programme is the casuistic orientation, i.e. working on and with case studies in lectures and seminars. As part of the Didactic Lab, contextualised video and audio recordings or protocols of teaching situations are collected, systematised, processed and archived in the case database 'Kunstpädagogische Falltiefen'. For this purpose, audio and video files from research projects, as well as other material generated by students during the practical phases, are fed into the case database and processed (e.g. edited, anonymised, provided with reflection prompts and stored as vignettes on a freely accessible server). The archived case presentations can be used by lecturers and students in teaching.

Specifically, these are video and audio recordings as well as verbatim protocols of

• lessons or teaching scenes,
• Interactions between school actors, i.e. art teachers, pupils and possibly other non-school actors (artists, teachers at art schools, museum staff, etc.) inside and outside the classroom,
• Interviews with art teachers about their professional experiences and their academic appointments,
• Interviews with students and alumni about their experiences at school, their school and artistic careers and the role of art and school in their lives.

The didactic laboratory is equipped with video cameras, tripods, audio recorders, microphones, etc., allowing students to borrow the relevant material for student research and teaching projects or to process and analyse art teaching material on the computers installed there for any student art education research projects.