The dilemma of dealing with persistent teaching traditions: findings of a video study

Nowadays, there is a consensus that good teaching and learning needs instructional variation and personalised forms of learning. In teacher education, these concepts have been implemented for years, and prospective teachers are taught accordingly; it is thus assumed that the teaching of novice teachers is in accordance with these new teaching concepts. In the research project ‘ALPHA’, the teaching of novice teachers at the beginning and at the end of their first year in the profession and the teaching of experienced teachers with five or more years of teaching experience was videotaped, so that longitudinal and cross-sectional comparisons were possible. The lessons were analysed by applying a coding system on the instruction and by employing a rater inventory in order to understand the structure and quality of the lessons. Overall, the results indicate high levels of whole class teaching with a rather high level of traditional classroom instruction both for the novice and the experienced teachers. However, the proportions vary depending on the location of teacher education. The results provide evidence that the new teaching concepts learned on the teacher education programme are not necessarily implemented in the classroom and provide possible reasons why this might be the case.     

Motivbasierte Passung von Sportprogrammen

Regarding the phenomenon of mood improvements through physical exercise, secondary analyses indicate that improvements can hardly be generalised. Rather, personal and situational factors need to be taken into consideration in order to define the effects in a more precise manner. This contribution investigates to what extent explicit motives and goals of individuals in middle adulthood can be considered as personal moderators of mood changes. Five exercise programmes were developed in a quasi-experimental design and were conducted over a 3-month intervention period. These programmes were based on the “motive-based types of sportsperson” (Sudeck, Lehnert & Conzelmann, 2011), which define groups of individuals with similar motive and goal profiles. One hundred and thirty-three individuals participated in either a programme tailor-made to their motive and goal profile or in a non-tailored programme. The influence of this motive-based tailoring was investigated based on the mood dimensions of valence, calmness and positive activation using handheld PCs during and after exercise sessions. Results indicate a moderating influence of explicit motives and goals. This moderation was however not a general one but rather depended on the exercise programmes’ specific goals and content as well as on individuals’ goals regarding recreation. These findings point towards a systematic consideration of explicit motives and goals in the planning of health and leisure sport programmes.