Active learning

Action-oriented teaching is a so-called holistic and student- active teaching where agreed between the teacher and the student action products lead the organization of the teaching process. As a result, to " head, heart and hand" (Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, 1746-1827 ), ie cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning of the students are placed in a balanced relationship to each other. It is not a didactic model, but simply a didactic- methodological concept. Other terms are pedagogical- didactic concept, teaching and learning arrangement or learning architecture.

Action-oriented teaching is usually of a concrete situation for practice (1st step) to it (step 2 ) to derive a general law or to declare a general principle ( inductive approach ). The opposite concept is the instruction learning. It first explains the principle of the legality or the relationship, only to treat individual cases in the form of exercises or examples.

The concept is largely attributable to the constructivist didactics. This postulated that humans can perceive external reality only with the help of their sense organs and that each person constructs his conception of reality from the perception in the course of his life. This results in, first, that the ideas can be inter-individually different. For the ( action-based ) Didactic particularly relevant a certain idea of ​​the "reality " in another person is the conclusion that there can not be a reasonable goal to anchor, as it now try obsolete forms of instruction. Instead, the learner must be assisted in the construction of his idea by offers him opportunities to test their own ideas to reality.

• 3.1 Project lessons
• 3.2 Open- work
• 3.3 Learning Station
• 3.4 Learning by Teaching

Definition ( evolution )

Action-oriented teaching is, a decrease in the work of education reform education concept. However, he has already precursor concepts in Pestalozzi's idea of ​​elementary education as a unity of head, heart and hand, and the self-activity concepts of the 19th century as Diesterweg or Froebel. In the work pedagogy debate at the beginning of the Weimar Republic heterogeneous concepts were represented as the free spiritual school work at Hugo Gaudig (1860-1923), the approach of school learning in the social production process to integrate (Paul Oestreich, 1878-1959 ) or more on craft work oriented pedagogy Georg Kerschensteiner ( 1854-1932 ). At the same time developed John Dewey (1859-1952) and William Heard Kilpatrick (1871-1965) the approach of "learning by doing ", in which the acting explore the great the school was actually important. However, other representatives of the progressive education era sat down on the verbal school and emphasized the educational effectiveness of an acting learning how Freinet (1896-1966) or Montessori ( 1870-1952 ).

Today, this approach is considered productive didactic- methodological concept. This is especially true for vocational education. Action orientation is today based learning theory on two basic theories, namely, the going back to the Soviet psychology by Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev activity theory as well as going back to the cognitive action theory of Piaget and Aebli approaches to developmental psychological foundations of learning. Often blurs the concept of action orientation with the holistic, discovery-based or open, child art education. Therefore, quality criteria are needed to define the action orientation clearer.

Action orientation to dispense with the principle of substantive topics completeness of a canon, but is rather an example; not the incorporation of terms, but their after- work and the recombining conditions are essential. Put simply, the action orientation extends the holistic approach to viewing the learner and its environment to the model of the complete action as constructivist process.

In the political formation of the action orientation has a special meaning. About the lessons, it means the transfer of learning into political action as an active citizen. This can be a concrete political action in the present ( in school life, political initiative ) or a state of readiness for future situations.

Characteristics of action-oriented teaching

Action orientation and wholeness

In action-oriented teaching act - in a change from exertion and relaxation - mental and manual labor, with the participation of feeling and of all the senses together.

Opening of teaching

Opening of teaching can take place at two levels:

• Substantive and institutional opening: The lessons allow the students, at least initially, even to see their school and classroom situation as an open, not in all institutionally defined life-world and learn new ( partial aspect of the life of teaching reference ). In the project work outside of school, the protected space of the school learning environment will also leave.
• Curricular and methodological opening: Teaching promotes pupils initiatives and responsibility for the choice of goal-oriented activities and the work and time scale ( up to the preparation of weekly schedules ).

Learner orientation

Under the principle of learner orientation on the one hand will be in great demand what they want for what purposes learn pupils or should, on the other hand, in order to accomplish according to their assets, their age and their specific living and learning experiences for specific learning processes and that their preferred learning styles are.

Content orientation

The thematic areas of action-oriented teaching pay greater attention to the personal experiences and interests of young people and challenge them to emotional and cognitive conflict. In addition, they are oriented in the higher classes increasingly in extra - and afterschool fields of activity in the private and professional life.

Learning orientation and process orientation

Given the realities of the school as an institution teaching is indeed still considered necessary. However, it is accepted that it is not more or less automatically lead to appropriate learning, even when students collaborate well. Thus, the teaching seen today in the students not objects of teaching, which are learning content "mediated". They are recognized rather than intrinsically active 'learners' who themselves process the material presented and the information of the teacher (see teacher-student ratio). You understand content based on their individual learning dispositions ( intellectual and affective factors ) and learning styles as well as their prior knowledge and their previous life and learning experiences ( " world knowledge "); in this stock they integrate new information as well as appropriate content and " construct " as their knowledge ( cf. constructivist didactics). (. This " construct " has nothing to do with the everyday language meaning of the term in the sense of consciously purposeful activity) This turn of a naive " Instruktionismus " to a " constructivist " position also changed the function of the instruction ends: they are amplified as classroom managers and learning facilitators seen that offer students tools for their knowledge construction.

The fundamental basis for this learning and process-oriented approach are:

• Reflected interplay of openness and control (see above)
• Promotion of a largely self-directed learning ( learner autonomy )
• Promote the development of individual learning strategies.

Product orientation

The aim of the action-oriented education is the production of material and / or linguistic action products.

This is done in partner, group and project work ( with a common discussion, planning and discussion, see the complete action model ): model, wall or class newspaper (possibly as an exhibition ); Letter or leaflet (not just class internally - fictional, but real and thus engaging in a public debate ); Participation in a contest or competition; Simulation, role play, scenic play, music, dance, theater performance, parents' evening; Class trip, excursion, etc.

Action orientation in the following methods

Project teaching

• Main article project teaching

Project work is an action-oriented, holistic, learner- centered, integrative form of learning that is open curriculum and through learner autonomy ( self-organization, self-responsibility ) and teamwork characterized. The results are products in the above sense.

Free work

• Main article free work

Free labor is a form of open, which goes back to the reform pedagogy. Depending on the degree of free work, the students work on their interests in organizational, temporal, spatial, collaborative, methodological, content, and individual freedom. In less radical forms of independent work, students choose freely from a prepared pool of materials and edit them.

Learning stations

• Main article Learning Station

Learning by Teaching

• Main article: Learning by teaching

Since the early 80s, the action-based learning method has been established by Teaching ( LdL ) in all subjects and school types (even on the college). The concept was first tested by Jean-Pol Martin in French classes at the Gymnasium and disseminated. In the manual for French didactics of Nieweler (2006) LdL is characterized as " radical form of student and action orientation " in the glossary.