Project Work in Inclusive Settings – Sensitize Student Teachers to Joint Learning

Abstract

An inclusion-based teacher training aims at the students’ develop-ment of professional skills, which qualifies them to act in a way that is reflective, innovative and open to various situations. Especially theoretically well-founded school-practice offers enable students to explore inclusive settings early and to adjust their own education to actual teaching conditions. Due to school-practical studies’ special potential for this professionalization, this article describes a re-peatedly conducted theory-practice-cooperation at a comprehensive school acclaimed for its inclusive learning culture. Student teachers independently plan project days about the topic addiction prevention and carry them out in an eighth grade. As it is the first experience in joint learning settings for most of the regular-school teacher students, they need to be well prepared for the observation and acceptance of diversity. They are also supported in the planning process by seminar teachers and class leaders, who provide didactical advice for adaptive learning arrangements. This is how the students learn in a non-judgmental practice en-vironment that the teacher actions shaped by uncertainties can resort to various options for action. The students’ shared responsibility and autonomy regarding conception, design and implementation require systematically established periods of reflection as well as moderated peer feedback. These methods are used to collect the challenges of inclusion and to enable an experience-based confrontation with one´s individual process of professionalization. Besides providing suggestions regarding organization, content and didactics for such projects embedded in seminar contexts, this article gives an insight into the students’ experiences and reflections via written assessments.