Project ALF
About the Project
Project ALF (Working with learning strategies and individual education program) is a research program of the IDeA program area "Adaptive Learning Environments". The research projects of that field deal with the question how learning environments should be created in a way that serves best the learning process of children with different learning conditions and that enhances the learning outcome of the children. There is a special focus on the development of children with development risks. In this context the learning environment in school (classroom environment) and the extracurricular learning environment (mainly the learning process at home and the cooperation between the parents and the teachers) serve as a starting point for the support.
Project ALF focuses on working with individual learning strategies and plans and individual education programs in everyday school life.
The individual education programs, as a starting point of the individual support of children with learning difficulties and achievement difficulties, are firmly written down in the Hessian school law. Individual education programs play an important role in this frame. They serve to document and to systematize individualized learning. For the teaching staff they are a special challenge, because individual support goals have to be coordinated with general teaching goals, the scope for development has to be created in the lessons for individual support and, in the end, also collaboration with the parents should occur. Here it becomes already clear that the construction of an individual education program requires professional competence in different areas.
The project ALF would like to perform a contribution to systematize the support practice at schools and to create a profound basis as well as to prepare teaching staff for these tasks.
What is meant by working with learning strategies and individual education programs?
The individual support of children with learning difficulties and achievement difficulties as well as children facing complicated learning conditions (family situation, migration background) is an important aspect of the everyday life at schools. Teachers are challenged to support and to encourage children with different personal conditions, abilities and skills in their individual development processes and learning processes. This should be integrated in the teaching at school as well as in the collaboration with the parents.
The project ALF deals with a central starting point of the individual support: the construction of learning and individual education programs as well as working with these. Learning plans and individual education programs are provided by the teacher if a special need for support of a pupil was ascertained or it might be the case that a pupil has to repeat a school year. The individual education programs are coordinated with the pupil and the parents and are carried out together. According to this, individual education programs enclose (1) aspects of the support during the school lessons and (2) aspects of the support at home. The aim of this is to support and to encourage children with different personal conditions, abilities and skills appropriately in their individual processes of development and learning processes. Different domestic, social and cultural backgrounds as well as individual learning conditions and needs for support are equally taken into consideration.
The purpose of this project is to increase the equal opportunity for the children by varied, however, coordinated offers of supporting strategies and methods and to secure the individual learning success for all learners.
For the school/ teacher this means to create an adaptive learning environment. In other words they have to adjust the learning state and the learning conditions to the pupils and include possibilities for individual learning methods.
By paying attention on the learning environment at school and at home at the same time, an intensive support, which surpasses the individualization in class, is realized. The collaboration of parents and teachers guarantees cooperating support and makes sure that the supporting programs at school and at home complement each other.
To facilitate an early intervention in the development of the children, the investigations focus initially on primary school pupils.
Project Goals
The purpose of this project is:
1. To systematize the support plans and to support the production of individual education programs in everyday school life,
2. To prepare (future) teachers with advanced trainings of how to create and use individual education programs in school and how to develop teaching material,
3. To implement the individual support program at an early stage of education for children with learning difficulties and complicated learning conditions and therefore to improve educational opportunities of these children (including school). In Hessen there is a special focus on the individual support in elementary schools, because teachers are instructed by the Hessian school law to provide every individual with a special need for support with an individual education program.
Methodology
The project ALF is taking place in three project phases:
Preparatory work and Co-operation
The surveys conducted in project ALF connect to extensive preparatory works on the subject "Counseling of Parents with Children of Secondary Schools" of Prof. Dr. Silke Hertel. At the moment, an active collaboration in IDeA occurs in project elbe (Parental Counseling at Primary Schools) (link) and in project IGEL (Individual Support and Adaptive Learning Environments at Primary Schools) (link). Other collaboration with IDeA projects, with projects of employees of the German Institute for International Educational Research is planned.
As part of some preparatory works, instruments for the assessment of individual education programs, for working with individual education programs in order to measure the amount of competence, which developed in the area of education programs, were developed and tested empirically. Direct and indirect measurement methods were used in a multimethod measurement approach and methods like the paper-pencil-tests (knowledge test, self-evaluation) and the evaluation/ assessment of individual education programs were combined.
In addition to that the first training concepts were piloted. The mentioned extensive preparatory works should help to optimise teacher education and training, and to review the material for the everyday life at school. Within the scope of this project, the explained and optimised concepts and the material should then be used in practice.
Milestones in the current year
In 2011 project ALF is testing the first training programs, which deal with teacher competence in individual education programs, for teachers in the primary sector. Moreover, pedagogical information days are offered which deal with the topic ‘individual education programs’ and there will also be expert discussions concerning this topic.
Scientific coordinators
Prof. Dr. Silke Hertel
Sarah Merkel, Dipl. Päd.
