SRL

FLOW

Self-regulated Learning through Writing

Freiburg Self-Regulated-Journal-Writing Approach

Self-regulated learning is a key competency at school, university, and in adult education. Learning journals are a promising method to foster self-regulated learning through writing. The writing of a learning journal is a self-determined way of writing that allows learners to freely develop their ideas about subject matter and to personally select which aspects of a learning episode require deeper reflection. In a learning journal, the learners typically write down their reflections on previously presented learning contents. In addition, they should ask themselves what they do not understand and what can be done to close this gap in understanding. To make the journal-writing effective, we developed specific prompts to encourage the use of beneficial cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies. For example, to encourage the use of elaboration strategies, learners are prompted to create own examples and recall own experiences to illustrate difficult and abstract concepts.

Up to now we conducted 16 experimental and four correlative studies to investigate how the writing of a learning journal should be instructionally supported, which cognitive and metacognitive learning processes are triggered, and which effects on learning outcomes can be achieved. Currently, we focus on how learning journals can be used in teacher education to foster pre-service teachers’ acquisition of knowledge for teaching, for example, how the integration of pedagogical knowledge and subject matter knowledge, as well as the acquisition of didactical reasoning skills can be facilitated by journal writing.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Matthias Nückles, Dr. Ai Miyamoto, Florian Luft

Cooperations: Prof. Dr. Alexander Renkl (Department of Psychology, Freiburg University), Prof. Dr. Inga Glogger-Frey (Erfurt University), Prof. Dr. Julian Roelle (Bochum University)

Financing:

• Own resources
• Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the post graduation programm CURIOUS (Curriculum, Instruktion und Lernprozess), being part of the Freiburg project of the quality campaign for teacher education (speaker: Prof. Matthias Nückles and Prof. Timo Leuders)
• Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) NU 129/2-1.

PrE-P

Professionsorientiertes E-Portfolio im Lehramtsstudium

Fostering Self-Regulated Learning by E-Portfolios in Teacher Education

How do content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge relate to each other? And how do they come into play in teaching? Many student teachers find it difficult to recognize the interrelationships between knowledge from these three areas. However, since teacher training at many locations in Germany is still characterized by poorly coordinated study structures, skills in self-directed coherence construction, i.e. the independent linking of different learning contents, are central. To promote these skills, an e-portfolio is being designed at the University of Freiburg to support student teachers throughout the entire bachelor’s phase. We develop learning tasks to promote horizontal coherence, i.e. to link content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. The continuous working on these tasks in the e-portfolio should, on the one hand, stimulate processes of knowledge networking among the students and thus support them in building coherent knowledge structures. On the other hand, the development of a profession-oriented perspective, i.e. the linking of the study contents with later professional activities, is to be favored. Therefore, the tasks focus on so-called core practices, central activities of a teacher such as giving explanations or formulating learning objectives. By working on the e-portfolio tasks, students should be able to experience the relevance of the core practices for their own learning process. In addition, the individual examination with the teaching profession is to be optimized so that the Bachelor students can make reflected transition decisions with regard to the Master of Education.

Contact: Julia Münch, Prof. Dr. Matthias Nückles

Cooperation: Joint project with the Pädagogischen Hochschule Freiburg an the School of Education FACE

Funding: Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of the State of Baden-Württemberg within the framework of the fund„Erfolgreich Studieren in Baden-Württemberg“ and the „Förderlinie 4: Eignung und Auswahl“