Teacher training at the University of Kassel convinces again: PRONET project is extended

The decision was announced by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Berlin on Monday (February 26). The funding follows on from the first project phase (2015 to 2018) and will last until the end of 2023. The university will also contribute around ten percent of the funding from its own resources. PRONET is particularly concerned with linking subject-specific, subject-didactic and educational science curricula in such a way that they complement each other. The project also includes an expanded curriculum that prepares future teachers for the challenge of inclusion and heterogeneous classes. Finally, a third field of action provides for the further strengthening of "reflective practical studies," in which academic theoretical knowledge is combined with practical professional competence. About one fifth of the approximately 25,500 students at the University of Kassel are enrolled in a teaching degree program.

"The renewed success shows: The University of Kassel is an excellent place to start a career as a teacher," commented University President Prof. Dr. Reiner Finkeldey on the news. "Students here receive an education that is based on the latest findings, methods and requirements and is constantly developing in close connection with research." The continued funding of PRONET has a high strategic importance for the strengthening of research and teaching in teacher education in Kassel and is also closely related to the profile focus "Empirical Teaching / Learning Research", which the University of Kassel has anchored as a research focus in its development plan.

"The positive assessment of our follow-up application shows once again that teacher education in Kassel is on the right track," said Prof. Dr. Dorit Bosse, Chair of the Center for Teacher Education (ZLB), commenting on the success. Already in the 1st funding phase, the University of Kassel was among the 19 universities that received funding in the very first round of approvals (out of a total of more than 80 applicants from all over Germany). "We are pleased that with the approved funds, the strengths of Kassel's teacher education can be further expanded and the results can be made usable in the long term through research," Prof. Dr. Frank Lipowsky, director of the University's Center for Empirical Teaching/Learning Research (ZELL), emphasized the success.

The joint concept of ZLB and ZELL aims at intensifying the networking of the different actors involved in teacher education. Accordingly, the programmatic name of the follow-up project is PRONET². The "high two" expresses the fact that the project is to have an even greater impact on a broader scale. The project involves 30 professors from almost all of the subjects represented at the university in teacher education; the university cooperates with schools in northern Hesse as well as the study seminars, school offices, the Hessian Ministry of Education and the Hessian Teacher Academy.

In addition to Bosse and Lipowsky, Prof. Dr. Friederike Heinzel (Institute of Educational Science), Prof. Dr. Jürgen Mayer (didactics of biology), Dr. Ellen Christoforatou (ZLB) and Johannes Gerken (ZELL) worked closely together on the follow-up application, which has now been approved, with the aim of transferring the results from the first funding phase into sustainable structures through the second funding phase, for example by anchoring so-called "innovation units" PRONET new developments in teacher training in Kassel. The other members of the steering group, Christine Göke (project management), Dr. Marc Motyka (coordinator of the meta-evaluation), Anne Busse, Dr. Benjamin Krasemann, Julian Storck, Dr. Monique Meier, Dr. Kathrin Ziepprecht as coordinators of the three fields of action of PRONET are also significantly involved in the success.

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About the "Quality Offensive Teacher Education":

With the "Quality Offensive Teacher Education", the federal and state governments want to jointly promote teacher training in Germany. To this end, around 500 million euros will be made available to selected universities until 2023. Nineteen projects in the first round of funding - including the project at the University of Kassel - began work in summer 2015.

Further information:

"Millions in funding through quality offensive" - University of Kassel press release, March 5, 2015: https://www.uni-kassel.de/uni/aktuelles/meldung/post/detail/News/lehrerbildung-an-der-uni-kassel-ueberzeugt-millionenfoerde-rung-durch-qualitaetsoffensive/

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Dorit Bosse
University of Kassel
Center for Teacher Education
Tel.: +49 561 804-3617
E-mail: zlb@uni-kassel.de

Prof. Dr. Frank Lipowsky
University of Kassel
Center for Empirical Teaching/Learning Research
Tel: +49 561 804-3613
E-Mail: lipowsky@uni-kassel.de

Sebastian Mense
University of Kassel
Communication, Press and Public Relations
Tel.: +49 561 804-1961
E-Mail: presse@uni-kassel.de