Vergleichsarbeiten im Vergleich – Akzeptanz und wahrgenommener Nutzen standardbasierter Leistungsmessungen in Baden-Württemberg und Thüringen

Test-based reforms of schools and teaching have become popular instruments of German educational policy. However, performance assessment and its implementation differ widely between the German states. The differences between the comparative tests used in Thuringia (years 6 and 8) and Baden-Württemberg (year 6) are particularly clear. For instance, the Thuringia competency tests are embedded within an extensive concept for teachers’ continual professional development and the teachers receive fair, criteria-based feedback. A quantitative teacher survey in both German states (n=1136) was carried out in order to find out whether these differences led to differences in the respective teachers’ acceptance and appraisal of the tests and whether the test results initiated internal discussions amongst teachers. The results show that teachers from Thuringia had a higher acceptance and estimation of curricular validity, uses of the data for learning diagnosis and for future lesson planning. Singularly, the use of the central test results to mark students received a higher evaluation from teachers in Baden-Württemberg. The tests results are also more frequently the subject of systematic discussions in school forums in Thuringia.     

Routines and collective orientations in mathematics teachers’ professional development

There is an increasing awareness of the social dimension in mathematics teacher education. Collaboration and co-operation are regarded as key factors in professional development. In this paper I will analyse some tensions that might arise when the professional development of mathematics teachers is considered a collective enterprise. I will present phenomenological group interview as a method that is designed to reveal the collective character of teacher development. Some primary teachers’ collective reflections on an ongoing professional development process will be interpreted by focusing on the concepts of routine and collective orientation. The discussion is centred on the ambivalence of routines, as facilitators of practice, and collective orientations, as socially-agreed-upon knowledge base, for mathematics teachers’ professional development.

Engaging fans and the community in social media: interaction with institutions of higher education on Facebook

Although many universities use social media to interact with stakeholders, little is known about the underlying mechanisms. Drawing on theories of self-presentation and community engagement, we develop a theoretical model to explain these crucial outcome factors. We then test the model based on secondary data from 159 universities. Our findings reveal the double-edged nature of community size: universities with a strong reputation tend to have more Facebook fans, but having many Facebook fans has detrimental effects on individual fan engagement. Furthermore, the frequency of updates is a crucial factor, as too frequent and too infrequent updates lead to lower levels of fan engagement. We discuss theoretical implications for online communities and derive implications for social media managers.     

Why flipping the classroom is not enough: Digital curriculum making after the pandemic

PROSPECTS - To slow down the proliferation of Covid-19, governments virtually shut down public life, temporarily closed schools, and forced teaching to be done exclusively on a remote basis. These...     

德国国家科技图书馆的发展思考与实践

简介科研数据应用的新发展以及科研数据权益管理的新挑战。描述德国国家科技图书馆的可扩展架构以及其中的科研数据入口网站GetInfo、永久性识别服务DOI、全球性数据引用服务DataCite等的实践成果,并讨论培养数据馆员的需求。这些服务可以增强对非文本资源的检索、标识数字数据资源、促使科研数据得到正式引用以及提升图书馆价值。     

Prospective elementary teachers' comprehension of mathematics instruction

This article reports on a study that investigated prospective elementary teachers' knowledge and convictions regarding content, pedagogy, and pupil needs as well as on their rationales for the teaching of mathematics. Data collected through journals is qualitatively analysed and interpreted to understand common views on ‘ideal’ mathematics classes. The findings are used as a basis for a broader sociological discussion of the school's role in a changing environment. Participants in this study tend to value mathematics classes mainly in terms of the degree of pupil enjoyment. Consequently, they comprehend the teacher's role as beyond instruction: the teacher as an entertainer. This is discussed by confronting the two conceptions of school as a locus for serious learning, and of school as a ‘playhouse’. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.