Silke Hertel/Jasmin Warwas/Eckhard Klieme
Individual Fostering and Adaptive Learning Opportunities in Elementary School Instruction. An introduction
Eckhard Klieme/Jasmin Warwas
Concepts of Individual Fostering
“Individual fostering” is defined as educative action consistently taking into consideration individual preconditions of learning and education. In the part decade, the term has become a central topic in the public debate on education. In the scientific literature, however, it surfaces by far less frequently because it describes a feature of pedagogical action which is more or less self-evident. The authors analyze the educational and political discourse on the topic, and subsequently outline different variants of a pedagogical concept of individual fostering, mostly discussed under different labels, as well as empirical findings regarding the efficiency of these variants. Finally, the mechanisms underlying effective individual fostering are described, and perspectives for the pedagogical practice and for educational and psychological research on individual support are outlined.
Ilonca Hardy/Silke Hertel/Mareike Kunter/Eckhard Klieme/Jasmin Warwas/Gerhard Büttner/Arnim Lühken
Adaptive Learning Opportunities in Elementary School: Characteristics, methodological-didactic emphases, and required teacher competences
In elementary school pedagogics, a productive approach to students’ heterogeneous learning preconditions is considered to be of great importance; here, attaining an above-average achievement while simultaneously reducing achievement divergence is considered the crucial aim. Based on socio-constructivist theories of learning, the present contribution systematically examines the characteristics of an adaptive form of instruction. With the project IGEL, the authors present an intervention study carried out in elementary school science instruction which is meant to generate evidence-based knowledge on the organization of learning opportunities.
Judith Pollmeier/Ilonca Hardy/Susanne Koerber/Kornelia Möller
Is it possible to validly assess learning levels in natural science among elementary school children by means of written tests?
In science instruction, diagnosing students´ concepts in the sense of a formative assessment constitutes a necessary prerequisite for an adequate promotion of conceptual development. While qualitative interviews aiming at surveying conceptual learning levels in natural science among elementary school students are well established, hardly any studies exist that examine in how far the more economic, closed written answer formats allow for a valid diagnosis of individual concepts. Based on a survey carried out in two classes of third-grade elementary school students (Age: M = 9.26 years, SD = 0.42) with regard to the two science units “Floating and Sinking” (N = 41) and “Evaporation and Condensation” (N = 32), the present contribution shows that there is a substantial correlation between oral interviews and written test results and that, therefore, – given certain preconditions – it can be assumed that written tests, too, allow for a valid recording of children’s learning levels.
Jasmin Warwas/Silke Hertel/Andju Sara Labuhn
Factors determining the use of adaptive forms of instruction in elementary school
In the present discourse on educational science, dealing with the students’ heterogeneity has become a topic of strong interest again. So far, we still lack studies which examine empirically the relation between the heterogeneity of students – at elementary schools, in particular – and the use of adaptive forms of instruction and which investigate the factors determining these forms of instruction. The present empirical study substantiates the special importance pertaining to the variation of instruction material as an adaptive form of instruction. Furthermore, it reveals the interactions of features of the class (heterogeneity in student achievement) and features of the teachers (constructivist beliefs about the nature of teaching and learning) as significant predictors for the use of adaptive forms of instruction.
Frank Lipowsky/Claudia Kastens/Miriam Lotz/Gabriele Faust
Task-related Differentiation and the Development of Verbal Self-Concepts in Early School Instruction
The present study investigates what effect task-related differentiation in German lessons has on the development of the verbal self-concept of first- and second-graders (reading and writing). The random sample examined consists of 735 first-graders and 38 classes from state-run and private elementary schools which were studied in their development up to the end of the second grade. Results show both an indirect and a direct effect of task-related differentiation: in classes in which teachers – by their own account – applied task-related differentiation more often the “Big-Fish-Little-Pond-Effect” was by far less pronounced. Furthermore, students in classes with a more pronounced task-related differentiation developed, in the course of the first two school years, more advanced selfconcepts than students from classes whose teachers reported less intensive differentiation. These two effects, however, can only be substantiated for the development of the self-concept in writing, but not for the development of the reading-related self-concept.
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Johannes Giesinger
Ductility and Destiny – Critical annotations on Dietrich Benner’s General Pedagogy
According to Dietrich Benner, the use of the concept of perfectibility (or Bildsamkeit) distinguishes modern pedagogy from the tradition of teleological thinking. This view is contrasted by the fact that Benner himself operates with the idea of a final vocation (Bestimmung) of the human being in his definition of perfectibility. It is shown in this paper that in ascribing to children the vocation to participate in human practice, Benner joins a line of tradition that can be traced back to Rousseau, Kant, and Fichte, but nevertheless misses the traditional meaning of perfectibility. In the final part of this paper, the author proposes an understandig of perfectibility that takes up the traditional usage of the term and contrasts it to Benner’s account.
Arnd-Michael Nohl
Resources of Education – Empirical reconstructions with regard to the biographically anchored background of transformative learning processes
In qualitative educational research, the differentiation between continuous learning processes and discontinuous educational processes has been convincingly described both theoretically and empirically. This contribution, in contrast, examines which resources education – conceived of as subjectivization through the transformation of life orientations – draws upon. On the basis of a documentary interpretation of several narrative-biographical interviews, the author shows, in delimitation from models of provision and linearity, how divergent complexes of experience may link up with one another in life histories, occasioned by an inspiring situation, and may thus become a resource for educational processes.
Frederik Herman/Angelo van Gorp/Frank Simon/Marc Depaepe
Tracking the discourse, dream, and reality of the architectonic design in Decroly’s Ermitage
The contribution is divided into three parts; first, we try to uncover the Decrolyians’discourse concerning school architecture. On the basis of original sources, we look at the manner in which Decroly’s and his disciples’ thoughts on school buildings expressed themselves in the material heritage. Subsequently, Decroly’s own school location is described and the question is raised as to how the developed environment was integrated into the pedagogical practice. In the final section, we study the utopian blue-print by the architects Renaat Braem (who nowadays is still considered one of the most important representatives of modern architecture and modern urban development in Belgium) and Jack Sokol, dating back to 1946. This had been a megalomaniacal project which was described both by the archtitects mentioned above and by the Decrolyians as a break with the existing school buildings, the ancient temples of pedagogy, in which one professed one’s faith in the old didactics. It links up with the body of thought of an international plea which had been discussed during the first half of the 20th century, mainly in reform-pedagogical circles. The fact that the Decrolyians did, in the end, not realize their project of a renewable architecture was not so much the result of their persistent skepticism regarding one or the other school-architectonic determinism, which would transport the school building beyond the pre-eminence of its flexible use within the framework of the active method, it was simply due to limited financial resources.