Abstract:

Digital media not only keep constantly moving into schools and universities, they also change the way of learning and the access to education sustainable. Three main fields influence the current discussion about digital media in education: media education, media didactics and computer science. In contrast to this scientific debate, the practically oriented teachers’ pay more attention to didactic benefits, before deciding to use digital media in schools. Teachers need the educational and methodological expertise and competences to keep their actions professional and up to date. Often there is a lack of appropriate further training.

The objective should be the expansion of existing forms of in-service teacher training by providing conceptual, didactic and practical skills in dealing with digital and interactive media. This is the most effective way, to increase the reflected use of these media in school lessons. Starting from basic theories of learning and teaching with digital and interactive media and the latest educational findings, this research approaches this challenge empirically. In a two-stage empirical design, training structures are examined.

A case study "Interactive media in schools" shows the cross-phase certificate course (of the same name) as a in-service training for teachers and an university module for students. This course has been held at TU Dresden since 2014 with about 200 participants and has been evaluated (n = 45). Based on these experiences and emerging challenges, a generalized empirical design for the analysis of success factors of in-service teacher training was developed.

As a result of a qualitative survey (n = 36) on beneficial and hindering aspects in teacher training, a quantitative survey tool was abstracted. The 39 items in the survey are roughly divided into the categories Organizational, Implementation/Methodology and Digital Media. This quantitative sub-study was delivered to over 1200 stakeholder. In the end, 225 Saxon teachers and 60 trainers finished the online survey, all across school forms and experience levels.

The results in the dimensions of priority and performance (importance and satisfaction) allow conclusions about the success of individual measures in the training context. Based on the differences between priorities and satisfaction, it is possible to derive concrete actions to increase the persistent success in the field of in-service teacher training. General and specific statements can be made about success factors in teacher training through the synthesis of these two sub-studies. In the end, the (re-) design of concrete training formats based on the findings become possible.

Keywords:

Teacher education, in-service training, further education, Didactics.