DiF II - VL9

• The presentation discusses models and methods for diagnosis and individual support in education at Technische Universität Dortmund, Institut für Allgemeine Didaktik und Schulpädagogik with Prof. Dr. Esther Dominique Klein whose consultation hours are on Mondays, 15-16 (virtual), Martin-Schmeißer-Weg 4-8, Room 08.02.02.
• The material is copyrighted and intended only for personal use within the university.
• Duplication, editing, distribution, and any form of commercial use or sharing with third parties are prohibited.
• Streaming/ recording during the lecture is forbidden.
• Violators may face civil and criminal charges.

Review

• Historically addressed diversity in the school system.

Current Focus

• Managing diversity and steering the handling of diversity in schools.
• It is important how the school system changed since the 2000s
• It is important how the state attempts to steer actions in schools, involving educational standards and comparative assessments.
• Understand how the changes impact teachers' actions in the classroom.

PISA Shock

• Around the 2000s, the "PISA Shock" highlighted the focus on why students were not achieving their potential.
• "Programme for International Student Assessment" assesses 15-year-olds in reading, math, and science which were implemented just before the end of compulsory schooling worldwide.
• The first PISA study conducted in 2000 and published in 2001 showed that German students were average within the OECD.
• This contrasted with the expectation of above-average performance. The results resonated widely in the media and educational policy circles.

Educational Disadvantage

• The PISA study revealed that certain student groups had less access to higher education and benefited less from the educational system impacting their competence development.
• Particularly disadvantaged were students from families with a history of immigration and those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
• According to PISA, Germany has a very high level of disadvantage.

School Structure Debate

• The "PISA Shock" led to structural debates for schools with a shift in perspective on educational achievement.
• Emphasis moved from participation to competence development ("school effectiveness") and a detailed empirical analysis of the causes of educational disparities.
• Reforms involved introducing schools with multiple educational pathways and expanding all-day school operations,
• There was an attempt to reduce the selectiveness of the school system, but it did not succeed.

Current School Structure

• All federal states except Bavaria have changed the structure of secondary education:
• States are now either two-tiered or multi-tiered secondary systems.
• Two-tiered examples include Saxony, Hamburg, Saarland, and Schleswig-Holstein; multi-tiered examples include North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Bremen, and Thuringia.

Reflection Task

• Thinking about the chances of getting a recommendation for the "Gymnasium" (German academic high school) for students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds compared to students from more privileged backgrounds.

Gymnasium Recommendation

• Even with equivalent cognitive abilities and competencies in reading, math, and natural sciences, children from higher social classes have a much higher likelihood of receiving a recommendation for Gymnasium.
• Children whose parents are in upper service class are three times more likely to be recommended than those whose parents are (skilled) workers.

State Steering and Educational Standards

• State governments try to steer schools through educational standards and comparative assessments.

Traditional School Steering

• Traditional steering involves standardizing structures and processes through regulations like laws, decrees, curricula, procedural rules, and qualification regulations.
• Hierarchical decisions concentrate power at the top, leaving individual schools with limited formal creative control.
• The system assumes uniform implementation leading to standard outcomes, without checking effectiveness
• The existing regulations assume that the regulations apply the same to all schools, and the results achieved are similar.

School Heterogeneity

• Studies from the 1970s/80s, focusing on comparing process characteristics, revealed that schools and teachers are heterogeneous
• Schools operated under the same systemic conditions (resources, guidelines, curricula) but interpreted these frameworks diversely.
• Hierarchical management is not precisely implemented in schools, but adapted to the local situation.

Changes in the 1990s

• Shift to school autonomy and decentralization occurred in the 1990s.
• Schools have pedagogical independence and can influence the implementation.
• Aiming on the pedagogical questions, organizational issues and administration (Rürup, 2007)
• Schools know best how things work on location and the schools can pick their teachers

Output Orientation

• Greater focus on the effectiveness and efficiency of the education system was achieved.
• There was increased use of comparative studies with (e.g., PISA), rankings and reports on successful education systems,
• There was introduction of instruments for controlling quality in schools.

Quality Control Instruments

• In 1997, the KMK released the "Konstanz Resolution" introducing evaluation measures for quality assurance, with a unanimous agreement among the 16 federal states
• From 2004, nationwide educational standards were introduced
• From 2004, there was progressive implementation of cross-state comparative assessments (VERA).
• in 2008/09, sample-based performance comparison studies for educational monitoring began.
• 2004-2008, school inspection procedures were introduced across all states, leading to feelings of control among schools

Educational Standards Defined

• Educational standards define the goals and competencies that students should achieve at a certain point in time (Maag Merki, 2016, S. 152).
• In Germany, educational standards specify the competencies students should have in certain subjects at the end of an educational stage.
• Standards were introduced/revised at various times for primary level (German, math), secondary levels, and general higher education entrance qualification.

Comparative Assessments (VERA)

• Comparative assessments are externally administered and defined procedures used to assess competencies and achievements at the end of a learning period.
• In North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the assessments covers all students in grades 3 and 8.
• Focuses on the development of tasks based on educational standards, with alternating priorities and some voluntary components which are used nationwide.
• There are reporting of assessment results during working discussions for the school governance.

VERA Function

• The VERA results enables instructional design on a school/classroom level (self-evaluation).
• VERA results help instructors plan and reform the future instruction/practice based on those results.
• Materials that accompany VERA assist competency-based instruction*
• VERA is unsuitable for in-depth analysis, but rather for reviewing the performance of reading and/or listening comprehension.

Competency

• Focusing on competencies is seen as output.
• The assumption is that educational standards and comparison work could possibly have a positive effect on promotion if the student is pointed towards their competences.
• Competencies are the cognitive capabilities and skills of individuals to solve a problem in all its forms, as well as an intrinsic willingness to do so.

Educational Standards vs Curricula

• Classic curricula generally formulate content goals and structure the subject matter for instruction.
• Educational standards define target outcomes and skills to be achieved by the end of learning. The process is left open.

Requirements for Teachers

• Teachers should adapt the learning opportunities to the students, to comply with educational standards
• Diagnosing is a requirement and shaping the instruction is a requirement.
• The standards are complex and hard in the moment. Competencies that are easiest to grasp can be applied to school or study.

Competence Grid

• As a practical approach to individual support, competence grids are used for more effectively
• Competence grids helps teachers to understand the required skills the students have and the stage they are for their competences.
• See example of Praxisbeispiel: Kompetenzraster der Gesamtschule Lohmar

The presentation concludes with a link to a document for further reading.

This presentation covers models and methods for diagnosis and individual support in education at TU Dortmund. It focuses on managing diversity in schools and how the school system has changed since the 2000s. Also covered are educational standards and comparative assessments.