Planning, Teaching and Reflection on Lessons – Development of Prospective Teachers in the Second Phase of Teacher Education in Germany

A competent teacher is a key determinant for pupils’ achievements. For this reason the number of studies concerning the professional competence of teachers and their education increased over the last years. In Germany teacher education is segmented into two phases: the scholarly phase with a duration of four to five years is carried out in an institution of higher education, e.g. a university, and the practical phase with a duration of one to two years is conducted in schools and supervised by state-run departments. Until now only a few studies have taken the second phase of teacher education into account even though it is the main phase for learning how to plan, teach and reflect on lessons, which are key competences of teachers. Therefore it is widely unknown how prospective teachers develop regarding their planning, teaching and reflection on lessons over the time of the second phase of teacher education.

The project described here focuses on the subject “Sachunterricht”, which at a primary school level combines all natural and social sciences in one subject. In three sub-projects the development of the planning of lessons (PhD project of Anna Hasenkamp), the teaching of lessons (PhD project of Sarah Rau) and the reflection on lessons (own project) in the second phase of teacher education in Sachunterricht are investigated. For that purpose instruments are designed which are able to measure the planning, teaching and reflection on lessons in Sachunterricht. These instruments comprise interdisciplinary criteria for good lessons as well as criteria specific for Sachunterricht.

During the second phase of teacher education the teacher educators visit the prospective teachers in their lessons in Sachunterricht for five times to support their professional development. In preparation of these visits the prospective teachers have to write down the lesson plans in detail. After the lessons they have to reflect on them. In this project the first, the third and the fifth visit are used to measure the performance of the prospective teachers. To analyse the planning the written plans are used. To analyse the teaching the lessons are videotaped. Audio recordings of the statements after the lessons allow for insights into the reflection on the lessons.

For the analysis of the planning 75 prospective teachers are investigated, for analysis of the teaching and reflection a sub-sample of 25 prospective teachers is used. Thereby it is possible to analyse dependencies between the three domains as well.