Aktuell

• von Dr. Alexandra Nießen
• 15.07.2026

Planning and designing school lessons is a demanding task. Prof. Dr Daniel Scholl researches and teaches how teachers can be prepared and supported to do this professionally. The 47-year-old has taken up the chair in ‘Educational Sciences with a focus on General Didactics’ at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

[Dr. Alexandra Niessen:] How would you summarise your research in a few sentences?

[Prof. Dr. Daniel Scholl:] I am investigating what teachers need to know and be able to do in order to plan, deliver and evaluate lessons professionally. One aim of my work is to describe teachers’ competences in greater detail, to assess them empirically and to promote them in a targeted manner. This involves, for example, examining how they perceive teaching situations relevant to learning and how they can draw on the analysis of lessons to make didactic decisions that promote learning.

Which issues are particularly close to your heart?

Lesson planning is particularly important to me. It is one of the core tasks of teachers, yet for a long time it has been studied less intensively than other areas of teaching. I am interested in how teachers make pedagogical decisions and how they relate objectives, content, methods, media and the learning group’s circumstances to one another. Planning lessons is not simply a matter of filling in individual building blocks one after the other. Good planning requires keeping track of many decisions at once and assessing their implications for the pupils’ learning.

This raises the question: just how demanding is this planning work for teachers’ cognitive processes? When trainee teachers plan lessons, they have to process a great deal of information simultaneously. I am therefore also investigating how didactic models can help to better organise this complexity, and where they might place excessive demands on students in teacher training.

Another key focus is on digital assessment and support tools. Such tools can help teachers and those undertaking professional development to gain a clearer understanding of their own professional strengths and areas for development. The educational value is crucial here: digital tools should provide clear, targeted and relevant support for professional learning.

Another aspect that is important to me in teacher training is linking theory and practice. Academic knowledge should help trainee and practising teachers to understand teaching more thoroughly and to make more informed decisions. This link is of interest to me in research, in teaching and in the structural development of teacher training.

What other plans would you like to pursue at the UDE?

I would like to structure the General Didactics research area in such a way that systematic theory-building, empirical classroom research and teacher training are closely interlinked.

I will also be focusing on the modelling and assessment of lesson-planning skills. I would like to find out how teachers deal with complexity when planning lessons and how this skill can be developed in teacher training at university level.

At the same time, I would like to continue my work on digital diagnostic and support formats. I plan to collaborate with colleagues from the fields of educational sciences, subject-specific didactics and psychology, as well as with the Centre for Teacher Training (ZLB), the Interdisciplinary Centre for Educational Research (IZfB) and partners from schools, professional development and educational administration.

Why did you choose the UDE?

The UDE offers excellent conditions for my work. Educational science, teacher training, research into school development and subject-specific teaching methods are closely interlinked here.

I am also drawn to working at a large university where issues of educational equity, professional development and teaching innovation are directly linked to societal challenges. For me, the UDE is a university where academic breadth, regional responsibility and the advancement of education can be considered as an integrated whole.

How do you perceive the scientific opportunities in our region?

I see the region as an exceptionally dense hub of education and research. In the Ruhr metropolitan area, universities, higher education institutions, schools, centres for practical teacher training and other educational partners are located in close proximity to one another. This is a particular strength for teacher training, as it allows for effective dialogue between research, university education, pre-service training and school-based practice.

I find the link between UDE, the Ruhr University Alliance and the Ruhr Education Region particularly interesting. Many questions relating to my work arise here in concrete terms: How can teaching be successful under different social, linguistic and institutional conditions? How can teachers be professionally prepared for this diversity? And how can scientific findings be translated into study programmes, professional development and school development in such a way that they can be put to use in everyday school and classroom life?

A glance at his CV shows that Prof. Dr Daniel Scholl considers teacher training to be important and that he was already committed to this cause even before his appointment at the UDE. From 2024 to 2025, he was Director of the Centre for Teacher Training and Educational Research at the University of Siegen, and from 2019 to 2021, Director of the Centre for Teacher Training at the University of Vechta.

About the person: Daniel Scholl

• Since April 2026
  Professor for Educational Science, specialising in General Didactics, at the University of East Germany (UDE)
• September 2021 to March 2026
  Professor of Educational Science, specialising in School Pedagogy, at the University of Siegen
• February 2018 bis August 2021
  at the University of Vechta: Professor of School Pedagogy and General Didactics, and Director of the Centre for Teacher Training (2019–2021)
• December 2009 to January 2018
  Senior Lecturer at the Institute for General Didactics and School Research, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Cologne
• April 2015 to March 2016
  Acting Professor of General Didactics and Theory of Education at the Bonn Centre for Teacher Education, University of Bonn
• October 2006 to November 2009
  Research assistant at the Institute for General Didactics and School Research, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Cologne

• Habilitation (2018): „Theory of Didactics“
• PhD (2008), Dr. phil.: „Are traditional curricula redundant? On the curriculum-theoretical issues surrounding educational standards, core curricula and standardised tests“
• Master’s degree (1999-2005) in Education, Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Cologne

More information:
Institute for School Development, Prof. Dr. phil. Daniel Scholl, phone. +49 (0)201/18-34582, daniel.scholl@uni-due.de

Editor: Dr. Alexandra Niessen, phone. +49 (0)203/37-91487, alexandra.niessen@uni-due.de