Linking Theory and Teaching Practice in Teacher Education by Analysing Teaching Artefacts on the Basis of Situation-specific Skills

Abstract

Studies show that it is difficult for teachers to transfer knowledge acquired in university to teaching practice in schools. There is the risk that inert knowledge – knowledge that is seemingly available, but not used for problem solving – is accumulated. To respond to this problem, pre-service teachers need learning opportunities, which systematically and explicitly link university knowledge and teaching practice. The article presents a concept for creating learning opportunities based on situation-specific skills. The learning opportunities consist of three central components: (1) scientific knowledge is linked to teaching practice in the form of (2) teaching artefacts (3) through tasks based on situation-specific skills (perception, interpretation, decision-making). The article provides examples from two different subjects: Mathematics and Geography teacher education, to substantiate the concept. In principle the concept of these learning opportunities is transferable to different disciplines of teacher education and adaptable to different contents. Overall, pre-service teachers’ evaluations confirmed the lecturers’ impression that these learning opportunities are productive and effective to strengthen the link between theory and teaching practice.