The Oldenburg Teaching and Learning Laboratories are places where trainee teachers meet school pupils and observe them thinking, acting and learning. The Teaching and Learning Laboratories complement the school placements undertaken as part of the degree programme by providing a further way of linking subject-specific and subject-didactic theory with practical learning and teaching experience. In the Oldenburg Teaching and Learning Laboratories, students can focus their attention on pupils’ actions, ideas and cognitive processes; they can develop their diagnostic skills and try out their own teaching methods. Unlike school placements, classroom management is not required in the teaching and learning laboratory. Consequently, these laboratories are ‘simplified’, freeing up capacity. Students can use this capacity to concentrate on diagnosing and supporting their pupils’ thinking and learning. OLELA also provides an excellent opportunity to reflect on one’s own teaching behaviour and role as a lecturer.

Teaching and learning laboratories in Oldenburg began in 2002 with the founding of ChemOL. Since then, teaching and learning laboratories have also been established in the subjects of biology, physics, Computing Science and technology, and have become firmly embedded in the curricula of teacher training in Oldenburg. In this brochure, we present the laboratories that form part of OLELA. As OLELA is an open system that is not limited to STEM subjects, it has been reinforced since 2018 by the Oldenburg Experimental Laboratory for Economics Education (OX-Lab).

OLELA within the network

The activities at OLELA have enriched the Oldenburg-based OLE+ project – part of the nationwide ‘Quality Initiative for Teacher Training’ – through years of prior experience. In turn, OLELA has benefited from general considerations within OLE+ regarding the integration of theory and practice in teacher training.

OLELA was at times funded by the Deutsche Telekom Foundation as part of the ‘Pupil Laboratories as Teaching and Learning Laboratories’ project consortium, alongside five other universities. This has significantly enhanced the exchange of ideas on formats and methods and contributed to the quality of OLELA’s programmes. Through its integration with the GINT programme – Learning in Informal Spaces – experiences with teaching and learning laboratories, for example in Denmark and Greece, are now also being shared. This underlines the international integration of teacher training in Oldenburg.

OLELA as a tool for subject-specific didactic research and development

Within the framework of Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral theses, the teaching and learning laboratories offer a wide range of opportunities to develop and evaluate new concepts and learning materials, as well as to investigate empirical questions relating to learning, experimentation and assessment. There is a particular focus on process research.

OLELA thus supports not only the much-called-for ‘research-based learning’ in teacher training programmes, but also the further development of subject-specific didactic research in complex settings. The insights gained are fed back into both the teacher training modules and the in-service teacher training programmes offered by OLELA in the region.