EXPLAIN (Explaining Ability Intervention)
Our goal: To promote and explore explaining skills of prospective teachers in Business and Economics Education.
Explanations are of great importance for the understanding of learning content and occur with high frequency and duration in the classroom. In this project, prospective teachers improve their ability to explain economic concepts in a comprehensible way. Based on a video analysis of their own action they evaluate their individual explaining situations, so that they also acquire research-methodical skills. As a product of the project, a digital teaching-learning tool is developed and available for student teachers, which can be adapted to various disciplines.
Our approach: Design of a digital training module and examination of its effectiveness in an experimental setting.
Explaining skills are assessed longitudinally using a videotaped interactive simulation in which prospective teachers explain subject matter to learners. Between the two measurement points, students receive a training (intervention). We examine the extent to which prospective teachers' explaining skills can be developed during teacher education and transferred to new situations, which factors positively promote the development of explaining skills, and what influence teachers' explaining skills ultimately have on learners' understanding. Findings on these fundamental questions are central to understanding the development of explaining skills and their importance for learners' understanding and to promoting the development of teaching skills during teacher education.
Cooperation: Viola Deutscher, Mannheim University
Jürgen Seifried, Mannheim University