Studienseminar Neuss:
Profile
Teacher training in Northrhine-Westfalia comprises two stages. The
first stage consists of an academic course of study of the two subjects
eventually to be taught at school taking the type of school (e.g.
primary or secondary school, professional college) into account.
After taking their first state examination, as it is called,
students enter the second stage in one of 86 Studienseminars
(approximately comparable to teacher training colleges). Studienseminar
Neuss thus might be the place where young teachers that have
qualified both for the basic (grade 5 to 10) and the advanced (grade 11
to 13) levels of secondary schools would be trained for the job.
Training is done on the job in schools, where both the regular teachers
and teacher trainers monitor some of the young teachers' lessons and
give advice, and in the weekly seminars at the Studien-seminar.
Trainees attend one seminar each for their two subjects and a general
seminar that covers general educational and didactic questions.
The philosophy that Studienseminar Neuss is committed to is
based on two major assumptions:
- Teachers have to develop skills in six basic fields, namely on:
- how to teach lessons,
- how to educate children on approved principles,
- how to assess pupils,
- how to advise pupils, parents and colleagues,
- how to organize school life,
- how to bring fresh ideas into teaching.
- Teacher trainees, looking back on an extended biography of
learning at school and university, are adults and are entitled to be
respected as such.
Accepting teacher trainees as adult learners able and with a right to
take responsibility for their own training and a systematic development
of skills in the six fields mentioned above are the cornerstones
structuring the whole of the training program both in the two seminars
focussed on the subjects and in the seminar dealing with more general
questions of education and teaching. The texture of such a partnership
of learning among adults results in far reaching consequences.
Adults negotiating not only on the topics to be treated, but also on
methods and strategies, adults reflecting on the courses of their own
ways of learning must necessarily become aware of being responsible for
their own professional development. They will understand that the
topics and content of their teaching cannot by any means be seen
independently from the methods they are taught by.
What does this mean for teacher training? It means for example that
- teacher trainees and teacher trainers must have equal rights to
see their interests and needs respected when it comes to agreeing on
topics and methods. (Suitable methods to achieve this could be a sort
of polls on topics to be treated and the priority to be attributed to
them; simulating certain difficulties in teaching observed in lessons;
specific exercises to overcome such problems).
- such methods are to be preferred which are based on practical
experience and at the same time have a scientific or academical backing
(e.g. in different branches of psychology or the specific academical
disciplines corresponding to the school subjects).
- such forms of training should be chosen which encourage the right
of each individual participating in the training process to take
responsibility for their own way of achieving proficiency. (This
implies teacher trainees working on complex projects, working in groups
for an extended period of time, defining topics and methods for
seminars and taking part in organizing them.)
- that (not only but also) there should be an exchange on those
topics, methods and problems that make up much of everyday school
routine, and that the results should be assessed under the aspect of
teacher training (e.g. applying different methods of feed-back).
Teacher training in the second stage at the Studienseminar is scheduled
for two years. In the end there is the Second State Examination,
in which the candidates show their proficiency as teachers in their
subjects and for the age and ability groups in which they will have to
teach. Passing this examination is a prerequisite for applying as a
fully qualified teacher.
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