Grandpa is not convinced by his granddaughter’s expensive wish: noise-cancelling headphones are supposed to suppress background noise and thus ensure an optimal music experience. The senior doubts: How is that supposed to work? He is all the more surprised when the girl explains to him how sound and anti-sound work. “I think it’s great to explain everyday life with science,” says student teacher Alissa Çakarcan. “I really enjoy passing on this knowledge in class. And so it’s much more interesting than memorizing a physical mnemonic, isn’t it?”
The 25-year-old developed creative tasks like these as part of a seminar and carried them out in a so-called teaching-learning laboratory with a school class. The seminar – part of the bachelor’s program – is one of many elements in which future teachers at Freie Universität come into contact with school practice. Reflecting on one’s own behavior and adjusting it if necessary is particularly important to learn, says Eva Terzer. The doctor of biology didactics is the managing director of the Dahlem School of Education (DSE), the central point of contact for teacher training courses at Freie Universität. “We don’t just want to give students a toolbox that they can use to teach in the same way for decades. The core of the teacher training course is therefore learning how to reflect on teaching on the basis of technical and didactic theories and what you have to pay attention to.” Because every class is different: If the role play for vocabulary training works well with one group, it can come to chaos in the parallel class. The lessons must always be adapted to the respective learning group, explains Eva Terzer.
Technical education is more important than a “teacher personality”.
In order to get students excited about a subject, you also need a broad repertoire of interesting topics or questions. Excellent technical education based on the latest research is therefore of particular importance in the teacher training course at Freie Universität.
For a long time it was assumed that there was a “teacher personality”. “That has long since been scientifically refuted,” says Eva Terzer. However, there are definitely qualities that are good starting conditions for a teacher training course. An interest in working with children, for example. “People who want to learn throughout their professional lives, who are good at reflecting professionally and didactically, and who are flexible in their actions, probably have particularly good prerequisites for practicing the teaching profession.”
Teachers are still very much in demand in Germany – however, the demand varies greatly, as Eva Terzer reports: “The subject combinations German and history or German and politics make it rather difficult to look for a job after graduation.”
Alissa Çakarcan, on the other hand, will probably be able to choose her job with her choice of scientific subjects: In the second master’s semester, she is studying physics and biology for the integrated secondary school and for the grammar school. She didn’t know right away that she wanted to be a teacher, she says: “I missed school a lot right after I graduated from high school. I first started a scientific orientation course, but that wasn’t the right thing for me,” she says. As a dance teacher for children, she has always enjoyed teaching young people something. “For me, teaching is simply the perfect combination,” she says.
Training qualified teachers is a social concern
Alissa Çakarcan is one of around 6,500 students who are currently qualifying for teaching at Freie Universität Berlin. The course consists of six semesters in the Bachelor’s degree with an individual combination of subjects, four semesters in the Master’s of Education and a subsequent legal traineeship of one and a half years in Berlin.
The comprehensive education of teachers today is also a bridge to the future, says Klaus Hoffmann-Holland, First Vice President of Freie Universität: “Educating teachers in the best possible way is a matter for society as a whole that is particularly important for Freie Universität Berlin, so that the students Today’s students become tomorrow’s competent and critical minds.”
“Teachers have a social responsibility,” agrees Eva Terzer. A good teacher is therefore also characterized by an attitude that she represents in the classroom. Student teachers at Freie Universität are also being prepared for this: “Topics such as democracy building, digitization or sustainability are relevant in every type of school and every school subject. That’s why the students at Freie Universität deal with these topics in an interdisciplinary manner,” emphasizes Eva Terzer.
In the K2teach project, the students work with so-called case vignettes: In them, for example, the case of a child who has learning difficulties is described to the students. Diagnosis and recommendations for action are then developed: Where could the causes lie and what could the teacher do in this case?
The FOCUS video portal, a collection of learning units based on instructional videos, teaches future teachers how to take lessons professionally at Freie Universität. In the videos, the students see, for example, an effective or less effective way of dealing with disruptions in class. “They are comprehensively trained not only to deal effectively with disruptions in class, but above all to prevent them. By working with the videos, the students learn to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a lesson,” says Eva Terzer.
Alissa Çakarcan will start her legal clerkship in less than a year. She feels well prepared for her work in the classroom.
