Accompanying study to the project Connect2Learn for the intercultural dialogue among student teachers, university lecturers and refugees.

Description
This research project aims to document and evaluate the Connect2Learn project, which has been running at the University College of Teacher Education Styria since the summer semester 2015. For this purpose, the documents created in the course of the project so far, such as learning growth portfolios or table talk protocols (Tischprotokolle), will be subjected to an inductive content analysis and, afterwards, group discussions and individual interviews with project participants will be conducted on the basis of the insights gained.

The aim of the project is to collect, describe and document the profitable learning and growth experiences of refugees, students and teachers that are targeted by the project. At the same time, the project aims to reconstruct as far as possible which factors made these profitable experiences possible and encouraged them and which ones inhibited, hindered or possibly prevented them. On the basis of these findings, it will be shown what encounter projects of this kind can achieve in the field of cultural contact and how they can be successfully designed. The concrete methodology and didactics of the encounter events will also be discussed, in particular the World Café, which has been widely used in the project.

Project management
Prof. Mag. Martin Auferbauer
Institute for Educational Sciences

Research Team
Prof.ⁱⁿ Mag.^a Susanne Linhofer
Institute of Diversity Studies and International Relations

Univ.-Doz. Mag. Dr. Klaus-Börge Boeckmann
Institute of Diversity Studies and International Relations

Students have the possibility to take part in student mobility as part of their education. Especially for students that want to become teachers, this possibility of student mobility is very advantageous for their future profession. Large-scale studies on student mobility show that these advantages exist above all at the level of personality traits. Although the personality traits examined (e.g. problem-solving ability, open-mindedness) are considered relevant for the work as a teacher, two fundamental problems arise in the transferability of these research results to teacher students in general: First, the focus of the large-scale studies was not on teacher students and second, the personality traits studied do not correspond to the usual taxonomy for personality traits (Big 5), for which a wealth of research results concerning teacher education and the profession of teacher are available. The study proposed here is intended to close the resulting research gap: on the one hand, it is intended to establish a direct link to teacher training and the profession of educator, and on the other hand, it is intended to take up the usual taxonomy for personality traits (Big 5). The research results on student mobility gained from this can thus be directly transferred to the profession of educator and teacher training and can be linked to the existing literature on personality traits.

The aim is to check whether Erasmus+ actually

• offers unique learning experiences that would otherwise not be possible.
• benefits students for their future job and which benefits are those.
• has any effects on personality traits.

Project management
Prof. Heiko Vogl, BEd MA
Institute of Diversity Studies and International Relations

Research Team
Prof.ⁱⁿ Mag.^a Susanne Linhofer
Institute of Diversity Studies and International Relations

HS-Prof. Mag. Dr. Georg Krammer
Institute for Education Practice and Practitioner Research

Evaluation of digital learning in the area of German as a second language

This research project is an accompanying research project to the Digi.DaZ project of the Province of Styria, the University College of Teacher Education Styria and the Board of Education (Bildungsdirektion) for Styria, in which German as a second language teaching is to be offered to pupils in peripheral schools as digital distance learning. The accompanying research will focus on the question of whether and how such teaching can actually be implemented and how efficiently it is assessed in comparison to conventional classroom teaching. Another aspect that will be investigated is the question of whether digital added value can be achieved, for example by enabling innovative digitally supported forms of learning. For this purpose, up to 30 hours of video or audio recordings of the lessons as well as preparatory and follow-up documents of the teachers are evaluated and in a second phase ten guideline interviews with teachers are conducted. The project results will be used to evaluate the success and usefulness of the project and serve as a basis for possible further developments and adaptations.

Project goals
It is to be examined,

• whether and how digital distance learning can be implemented in the field of German as a second language (Deutsch als Zweitsprache: DaZ).
• whether the hardware and software used is suitable for the purpose of DaZ teaching.
• whether digital distance learning can be as effective as comparable face-to-face learning.
• whether an added value can be achieved compared to conventionally organised DaZ lessons.

The knowledge goal would also be achieved if one, some or even all questions had to be answered negatively. In this case, however, the aim should be to document the reasons for this finding so that the setting can be adapted accordingly for future projects.

Detailed project description (download, pdf, 142 KB)

Entire project management
HS-Prof. Univ.-Doz. Mag. Dr. Klaus-Börge Boeckmann
Institute of Diversity Studies and International Relations

Research Team
Prof.ⁱⁿ Mag.^a Susanne Linhofer
Institute of Diversity Studies and International Relations

Martin Teufel, BEd MA
Institute for Digital Media Education

Prof. Heiko Vogl, BEd MA
Institute of Diversity Studies and International Relations

Carina Hopp, MEd
Institute of Diversity Studies and International Relations

Supported by

• PHSt Research Funds
• BZBF (Federal Centre for Professionalization in Educational Research - Bundeszentrum für Professionalisierung in der Bildungsforschung)

A practical research laboratory as part of teacher training for the development of interaction skills as a basis for Focus-on-Form

Description of the project

The research and development project "Lingusti - The Creative Language Workshop" investigates how student teachers (LA students) learn to create interactive language learning opportunities through a specially developed university didactic concept and closely guided practice (within the framework of the "Lingusti Language Workshop"). To this end, in a first step and in cooperation with the "SprachSchatz" association, video vignettes will be created for use in university teaching. These video vignettes are intended to illustrate which linguistic and interactional strategies can be used to create language learning opportunities for multilingual children with German as a second language. In line with the concept of the "Lingusti-Sprachwerkstatt", social learning is combined with the focus-on-form approach from second language didactics in order to strengthen the children in both their linguistic and personal resources. With the help of the video vignettes, it will subsequently be possible to determine how students perceive interactions at the beginning of their training in the context of the focus area "Language Education and Diversity" and assess them in terms of their language development potential. 

The central research questions are:

- Can the focus-on-form approach be taught to student teachers through the use of video vignettes? 

- Do student teachers succeed in designing interactions conducive to learning in the sense of the Lingusti concept?  

- Do the student teachers develop interaction competence in the sense of the "Lingusti" concept?

The project aims

The aim of the project is to develop a university didactic concept including versatile video sequences in a first phase. In the further course of the project, this concept is to be used and optimized in teaching. Finally, the project will enable students to test the interactional and linguistic strategies in a protected environment in order to investigate the extent to which practical implementation is successful and how the students' interaction skills develop.   

Based on the data collected, a basis for the description of professionalization processes in this specific area of competence is to be obtained.   

As a concrete outcome, so-called "video vignettes", video and transcript examples for basic and further training are to be created in order to illustrate the interaction strategies used and to use this material to promote the skills of (prospective) teachers in this specific area. 

Project management

Prof. Dr. Daniela Rotter 
Institute for Diversity and International Affairs (daniela1.rotter@phst.at)
HS-Prof. Univ.-Doz. Dr. Klaus-Börge Boeckmann             
Institute for Diversity and International Affairs (klaus-boerge.boeckmann@phst.at)

Research team

Prof. Wolfgang Kolleritsch, BEd
Institute for Digital Media Education
Prof. Vera Rappl
Practice School - Secondary School of the PH Styria

Further information:

Detailed project description (in German)

University College of Teacher Education Styria Campus South
Institute of Diversity Studies and International Relations
Ortweinplatz 1, 8010 Graz

phone: +43 316 8067 6602
mail: international@phst.at, diversitaet@phst.at