University of Kassel enters into strategic partnership with experimental schools in Kassel

How can students who are barely keeping up in class reconnect? Does learning in mixed-age learning groups promote the development of social skills and do boys and girls benefit from this in a similar way? How much and what do students learn when they explore topics of their own choosing in free learning? What educational and career paths do school leavers take? Researchers from the university and teachers from the two schools want to systematically explore these and other questions together. The president of the university, Prof. Dr. Rolf-Dieter Postlep, the director of the Institute of Educational Science, Prof. Dr. Frank Lipowsky, the head of the Reform School Elke Hilliger and Gerhard Vater, head of the Open School Waldau, signed an agreement on a strategic partnership on Tuesday (February 4). Thematic focal points will be the development, testing and research of new teaching concepts, studies on social learning, the analysis of school transitions and the recording of school careers and educational paths of students from the two schools. The connection can and should be expanded to include other schools in the future.

"With this partnership, we are institutionalizing already existing collaborations with the two institutions and can therefore build on excellent joint experience," Prof. Postlep explained. "It is of great interest to our scientists to take their research findings out into society, to test them in practice and to receive new research impulses as feedback. This is especially true for the educational sciences, which are a research focus of our university and which are integrated in an exemplary way into a network of schools and institutions of pedagogy and teacher training," Postlep continued.

Reform school and Waldau open school: open to innovation

Gerhard Vater, head of the Waldau Open School, emphasized: "A school that sees itself as a learning system is dependent not only on successfully shaping the learning processes of its students, but also on constantly reassuring itself of the effectiveness of its actions. From this it gains impulses for further development. The scientific support provided by the Institute for Educational Science is a necessary, continuing and helpful support in the development and reflection of the diverse measures." Elke Hilliger, head of the Reform School, added from her point of view: "Now that the Reform School Kassel has consolidated its pedagogical concept, a possible research project, for example, on the potential of inter-grade learning, is a great opportunity to find further perspectives for the Reform School. The school community welcomes the fact that such a competent partner for the further development of the school as a trial school of the state of Hesse has been found in the Institute for Educational Science of the University."

Both the Reformschule Kassel and the Offene Schule Waldau are characterized by a great openness to reform and innovation. Both schools see the partnership with the university as an opportunity to put teaching concepts to the test more intensively and to analyze issues from their own practice in greater detail.

"For its part, the University of Kassel sees the partnership with the schools as a good opportunity for practice-oriented research," Prof. Lipowsky emphasized. "For members of the institute, the two colleges' willingness to innovate promises good conditions for testing new approaches to teaching and learning for their conditions, scope and effects." Student teachers and students in the master's program in Empirical Educational Research will be involved in the research projects, so the partnership will also serve to promote young researchers.

The Waldau Open School on the Net: http://www.osw-online.de

The Reform School Kassel on the net: http://www.reformschule.de

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Frank Lipowsky
University of Kassel
Institute of Educational Science
Department of Empirical Research on Schools and Teaching
Tel.: +49 561 804-3613
E-mail: Lipowsky@uni-kassel.de