PostDoc theses
Ongoing PostDoc projects
On the Road to Genotopia – Biotechnology Fiction as a Catalyst for Deeper Learning in CLIL Classrooms
In his 2013 non-fiction bestseller, Jonathan Gottschall famously called homo sapiens sapiens “The Storytelling Animal“. Yet, while humankind has never ceased to narratively convey experience and knowledge, our strictly curricula-ridden classrooms confine narratives to the modern languages, limiting the teaching of non-language subjects like the Sciences to non-fictional materials. My postdoctoral research is devoted to the development of a novel approach toward teaching content-subjects through fiction. My concept of FICTION AND CONTENT UNIFIED LEARNING (FACUL) employs neuroscientific insights into the conditions of successful learning and demonstrates how fiction with a strong extraliterary reference to the sciences can act as catalyst to trigger deeper learning processes. The texts dealt with range from examples of ‘Lab Lit’ (laboratory literature) to works which draw a utopian or dystopian trajectory of scientific progress. FACUL takes advantage of the narrative embeddedness of scientific knowledge and practice in literary texts and the synergies this embeddedness can release in order to empower students with scientific literacy. FACUL’s potential will be demonstrated using literary and filmic manifestations of the biotechnology revolution as test cases showing how multimodal and student-centered engagement with fiction can make scientific learning more accessible and inclusive.
Understanding, Documenting, and Providing Feedback on the Instructional Quality of Pre-Service and In-Service Foreign Language Teachers – Construct and Content Validation of an Assessment Instrument.
As part of the research project led by Klempin, the so-called "Performance Rating Manual (PRM)" (Klempin, forthcoming a) is to be developed and examined with regard to both content and construct validity (Wirtz, n.d.; Bortz & Döring, 2016). The PRM is an instrument designed to assess instructional quality in foreign language teaching, with a particular focus on English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The primary objective is to define and operationalize key dimensions of effective EFL instruction. The validation process is grounded in the paradigms of mixed methods (Gläser-Zikuda, 2012) and design-based research (Reinmann, 2023). It encompasses a systematic literature review (Klempin, forthcoming b) as well as cognitive interviews with in-service teachers, pre-service teachers, student teachers, and EFL experts. Initial findings support six core scales for evaluating instructional quality, which are currently undergoing further refinement.
Literature
- Bortz, J., & Döring, N. (2016). Forschungsmethoden und Evaluation. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
- Gläser-Zikuda, M., Seidel, T., Rohlfs, C., Gröschner, A., & Ziegelbauer, S. (Hrsg.). (2012). Mixed Methods in der empirischen Bildungsforschung. Waxmann.
- Klempin, C. (forthcoming a). Die Unterrichtsqualität von angehenden und praktizierenden Fremdsprachenlehrkräften besser verstehen, dokumentieren und rückmelden –Konstrukt- und Inhaltsvalidierung eines Instruments.
- Klempin, C. (forthcoming b). What Really Works in the Foreign Language Teaching Classroom? A Systematic Review on Effective Foreign Language Instruction.
- Reinmann, G. (2023). Reader zu Design-Based-Research (DBR). https://gabi-reinmann.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Reader_DBR_Sept-2023.pdf
- Wirtz, M. (o. J.). Konstruktvalidität, Prüfverfahren. In Dorsch—Lexikon der Psychologie. https://dorsch.hogrefe.com/stichwort/konstruktvaliditaet-pruefverfahren