Exploring Kassel's places of remembrance

Active participation in life in Germany and thus arriving in the country is linked to an understanding of social and historical discourses. A particular challenge of culture-based learning is that the current courses on offer require a high level of linguistic and historical knowledge.

Designing cultural education processes for learners of German as a foreign or second language (GFL) for specific places of remembrance outside the classroom therefore presents prospective teachers and mediators with numerous challenges.

This is where the funded service-learning project "Cultural education in GFL lessons: development, implementation and testing of digital learning arrangements in cooperation with the Stadtmuseum Kassel" comes in: In winter semester 2122, the aim was to design an activating, knowledge- and language-sensitive app offering with Actionbound [1] for Kassel's places of remembrance (cf. HNA, 19.05.2022: 6).

For the design of a digital prototype, the offer for DaZ learners was developed by the prospective teachers, tested, evaluated against pre-set criteria, modified again and finally implemented in a real educational context. The Design-Based Research (DBR) approach was chosen as the methodological framework for such an engagement project.

[1] Actionbound is an educational game that enables users, e.g. teachers and learners, to create mobile adventures or interactive guided tours or rallies. The app is available for mobile devices with Android and iOS and allows users to work with different features. Actionbound combines the City Bound method with the possibilities of m-learning (see de.actionbound.com (accessed 25.05.2022).