Project LArS.nrw

Brief description

The project "Learning with animated films of real scenes of social science teaching subjects" (short: LArS.nrw) opens up the potential of animations of real teaching scenes for teacher training in the subject social sciences in research and teaching. Animated representations of lessons are a form of practice representation (Grossmann et al., 2009). They enable situated learning, that is, theoretical concepts are contextualized in concrete classroom examples. In teacher education, instructional videos and transcripts have been the main tools used so far. Animations of real classroom scenes, on the other hand, represent new territory. They allow a targeted presentation of aspects of teaching relevant to subject didactics with reduced individuality of student and teacher characters. The project will produce research on differential effects of the vignette formats animation, instructional video and transcript (JProf. Dr. Gronostay) as well as two doctoral projects and a master's thesis. An overview can be found in the Teaservideo (in german) of the project.

Benefits for teacher education

There is a lack of freely available instructional videos in the subject of social sciences for use in teacher education. For the project, therefore, teaching scenes in the form of the innovative animated film format are made usable for teacher education. A special feature is that the animations are based on real classroom scenes and thus represent authentic classroom communication and practices. The cross-university LArS project team is developing a total of 24 animated films (3-6 minutes) and comics, as well as extensive teaching/learning materials that can be used in a blended learning format in university teaching or can be worked on individually. In three modules, LArS.nrw conveys curricular core content of subject-specific didactic teaching in the social sciences teacher training program. The focus is on the introductory teaching phase (Module A), the judgment formation phase (Module B) and dealing with challenging teaching/learning situations, so-called "critical incidents" (Module C).

Project duration and cooperation partners

Project duration: 10/2020-09/2022

The LArS.nrw consortium is managed by JProf. Dr. Dorothee Gronostay at the TU Dortmund University. At the Dortmund site,  Simon Filler supports the project as coordinator. The project team at the University of Duisburg-Essen is headed by Prof. Dr. Sabine Manzel while the project management at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal is in the hands of Rep.-Prof. Dr. Katrin Hahn-Laudenberg.

The professional production of the animations is handled by an external service provider, the Essen-based studio Fuchs Teufel Bild.

LArS.nrw is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. The animated videos, comics and teaching/learning assignments will be made available as Open Educational Resources (OER) to students and university lecturers inside and outside NRW via the new state portal ORCA.nrw.