The ACTion Research Project

Modeling, Explaining, Practicing, and Receiving Feedback: How Can the Acquisition of Core Practices in Teacher Education Be Optimally Fostered?

The Acquisition of Core Practices in Teacher Education

In the ACTion research project, we investigate how the instructional phases of modeling, explaining, practicing, and receiving feedback should be designed to enable prospective teachers to optimally acquire practical teaching skills. The authors focus on the acquisition of so-called “core practices” (McDonald et al., 2013), defined as cross-disciplinary, evidence-based, and trainable instructional activities. Should prospective teachers first try out “core practices” and then receive a positive modeling example along with an explanation? Or is it more effective to study a positive modeling example and explanation first before performing the core practice? Can the acquisition of core practices be further enhanced through a pre-structured trial phase in microteaching? What role does feedback play in skill acquisition?

To answer these questions, key educational and psychological models of instruction and skill acquisition (the “Learning Cycle” by McDonald et al., 2013, “Productive Failure” by Kapur, 2008, and “ACT-R” by Anderson & Schunn, 2000) are comparatively discussed with regard to their central theoretical assumptions. Based on this discussion, hypotheses are derived about the optimal sequence and design of training phases, which are tested in four extensive experimental training studies. The core practices being trained are “explaining”, “modeling”, and “supporting group work”. These are embedded in the practice domain of “supporting students’ self-regulated reading of scientific texts”, and implemented through the reading strategy training “Reciprocal Teaching” (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). The composition of teacher training sessions, as well as the sequence and specific design of the training phases, are systematically varied. Dependent variables include (1) conceptual knowledge and attitudes toward RT, (2) competence in the professional vision of RT teaching situations, and (3) competence in effectively implementing RT with students.

The project empirically examines prominent instructional and skill acquisition approaches from educationally influenced teacher education research and cognitive psychological teaching and learning research. To date, no studies in teacher education have systematically and experimentally varied the instructional phases of explaining, modeling, practicing, and receiving feedback to investigate their learning effects on knowledge, professional vision, and practical competence. At the theoretical level, the project contributes to the integration of approaches that have previously been treated in separate “scientific communities.” Practically, evidence-based recommendations are developed on how competency-oriented teacher training should be structured in the education of prospective teachers.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Matthias Nückles, Hadmut Hipp (teacher and research associate), Prof. Dr. Marc Kleinknecht, Anna Holstein (research associate)

Funding: German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft, DFG), project number: 491157666