A new way of understanding teaching: a German perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces and summarises a programme of German research into teaching started 20 years ago. This research draws on Herbart’s analysis of teaching with its focus on ‘Bildung’ (formation) which is distinguished from the measurement/psychometric tradition. It offers the possibilities of a deeper empirical understanding of pedagogical practice in terms of (i) education, (ii) formation, and (iii) didactics. The paper sets out four pedagogical assumptions drawing on empirical experience. It proceeds to a discussion of methodological principles to show what it means to reconstruct teaching using a hermeneutic approach involving a sequence analysis of lesson transcripts. The approach is also recommended for teacher professional learning through offering alternative ways of problem solving.

KEYWORDS:

• Teaching
• didactics
• education
• formation
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andreas Gruschka

Andreas Gruschka was a full professor for general pedagogy and school pedagogy at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt from 2000 to 2016. Educated at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster with an MA in 1975, a PhD in 1978, and Habilitation in 1983. From 1972 to 1994 he was a member, and during the final years leader, of a research group for the school-reform project ‘Kollegstufe’ (integration of general and vocational education) in Münster. From 1992 to 1993 he was a Fellow at the ‘Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin’. From 1994 to 2000 he was a professor for general pedagogy at the Universität Essen. He has been a research fellow or visiting professor in Vienna (Austria), Berkeley (USA), UNAM (Mexico), UNESP (Brazil), and the University of Hiroshima and Nagoya (Japan). He was also the founder and editor of the journal Pädagogische Korrespondenz (1986–2016).