Stereotypical assumptions associating high levels of giftedness and outstanding performance with maladaptive behavioral characteristics and personality traits (cf. disharmony stereotype) are rather prevalent in the school context as well as in the musical domain. Such preconceptions among teachers can influence student assessment and corresponding…

Previous studies from German-speaking areas of Europe could not prove any substantial development in the competences and the pedagogical content knowledge of prospective history teachers during teacher training, and thus could not empirically confirm the effectiveness of teacher education. We report on the theoretical framework and the results of…

Technology may promote student engagement in high-level learning processes in the classroom. Yet, whether teachers really exploit technology's potential to support student learning depends on their expertise. The authors compared pre-service and technology-experienced in-service teachers' reasoning about technology-enhanced lessons by means of…

Initial teacher education is the main opportunity to prepare pre-service preschool teachers to foster young children's science competences. Although initial teacher education is important for preschool teachers' later instruction in practice, little is known about early science education in initial teacher education. To gather first insights into…

In this article, we analyse pre-service language teachers' written plans for demonstration lessons in Germany. Our objective is to reconstruct and quantify generic and subject-specific planning decisions related to adaptive teaching, specified as the ways in which a lesson's main task fits the learning group's cognitive level. The focus is on…

This paper examines the role of professionalism in teachers' change in practice related to dialogue and argumentation. Data were collected from 14 pre-primary and primary school teachers who participated in a professional development programme with an emphasis on promoting values such as tolerance, empathy, inclusion and social responsibility…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to arrest an ongoing didactisation of teaching leading to the disappearance of the original content of knowledge. Design/methodology/approach: Teaching can only be understood within its inner logic by exploring the individual expression of pedagogical practice in three dimensions: education, formation…

In initial teacher education (ITE), preservice teachers acquire declarative knowledge in different knowledge domains: general pedagogy, content, and pedagogical content. To investigate how they use this knowledge in a school-related situation, n = 56 preservice teachers were asked to evaluate a peer's fictitious lesson plan. Their comments were…

Comparative education scholars are often sceptical of teaching effectiveness research that compares 'teaching quality' using systematic classroom observation systems across nations. This article investigates how three international observation systems designed for comparative use, and studies that apply them, attend to three concerns intrinsic to…

This paper introduces and summarises a programme of German research into teaching started 20 years ago. This research draws on Herbart's analysis of teaching with its focus on 'Bildung' (formation) which is distinguished from the measurement/psychometric tradition. It offers the possibilities of a deeper empirical understanding of pedagogical…

It is broadly admitted that social contexts of reasoning may prompt children and adolescents to improve the quality of their reasoning. However, it is not clear how this quality may be assessed when it comes to arguments expressed within oral interactions in diverse settings (whole-class or small-group discussions) by students of different ages…

In this paper we use novel data to test the direct and indirect paths between teacher self-efficacy and student outcomes. This includes how teacher self-efficacy is linked to student, teacher, and expert rater views of lesson quality. Our results illustrate how the link between teacher self-efficacy and instructional quality is sensitive to how…

As we talked with school teachers about the use of physical computing systems in class, one major drawback of these systems became obvious: almost nobody--next to enthusiastic autodidacts--has been able to tell us on an abstract basis for which educational purposes a certain physical computing system can be used, i.e. in a goal-oriented way. This…

CLIL programmes are firmly established in German schools. While empirical studies have provided insights into aspects such as language- and content-related achievement, motivation, and cultural learning, little is known about classroom practices and students' perceptions thereof. Using ADiBE's instruments, this mixed-method study explores how…

General Studies (Sachunterricht) lesson, which includes social and science themes because of its interdisciplinary form, takes place in the curriculum of each class level at primary schools in Germany. The aim of this descriptive case study is to examine how the teaching process of third-grade General Studies lesson is run in terms of learning…