Discussions of what future teaching and learning with and within digitised learning environments should look like in schools in Lower Saxony are currently in full swing. Public debates on the future of education in a digitally networked world are dominated by disparate examples veering between best practice and horror scenarios. Profound changes are predicted to occur in schools in the course of the digitalisation and mediatisation of education, while at the same time digital technology is already being used in schools and in lessons. Very few studies have been conducted in German-speaking countries that not only examine digital media in specific teaching scenarios but also explore broader issues in everyday school practice within a digitally networked world. This starting point for this project is that a better understanding of everyday ‘digital practices’ is required in order to generate research data on teaching in schools in the current ‘digital culture’ as well as practical stimuli for the future integration of digital media. The LernDiWa project ethnographically examines how cultures of learning in schools are changing as a result of the digitally networked world.
This is an inter-disciplinary project, which combines educational sciences with media studies, cultural studies and cultural anthropology. It takes advantage of the opportunity to represent everyday school life as a linguistic and physical action using things and media, in a specific, differentiated and situational way. It understands the relationship between people, things and media to be reciprocal: things and media influence the actions of people just as people influence things and media. In this context the project team are interested in the changes that occur in everyday school life and in lessons as a result of digital media. In order to more thoroughly understand such changes the project team are interested in new routines as well as ambivalence, for example tensions observable in practice between new, changed and traditional processes. It is important to gain a deeper understanding of the significance ascribed to digital media in everyday school practice.
- Project Goals
The project adopts a design-oriented perspective. This should enable successful interventions to be developed that are highly relevant for policy-makers and school development, precisely because they have been developed with a firm basis in detailed knowledge of everyday school practice – and its challenges, achievements and uncertainties.
- Approach
For one year researchers will observe the everyday practices of using digital and other technologies in a highschool, focussing on one class. We draw on the practice theoretical learning culture approach developed in a previous study to investigate schools in the digital world. Using this approach, the team focuses on how digital practices are interwoven with school planning, governance, teaching and learning. The LernDiWa team also explores the relationship between digital practices in school and those of teachers and pupils within their families and in their free time. In this way, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of digital practices and the role played by software in these processes.
- Publications
- Herrle, M., & Wagener-Böck, N. (2023). Zur rekonstruktiven Untersuchung von Schule und Unterricht. In M. Proske, K. Rabenstein, A. Moldenhauer, S. Thiersch, A. Bock, M. Herrle, M. Hoffmann, A. Langer, F. Macgilchrist, N. Wagener-Böck, & E. Wolf (Eds.), Schule und Unterricht im digitalen Wandel. Ansätze und Erträge rekonstruktiver Forschung (pp. 139-151).
- Langer, A., & Macgilchrist, F. (2023). Zu digitaler Medialität in Schule und Unterricht. In M. Proske, K. Rabenstein, A. Moldenhauer, S. Thiersch, A. Bock, M. Herrle, M. Hoffmann, A. Langer, F. Macgilchrist, N. Wagener-Böck, & E. Wolf (Eds.), Schule und Unterricht im digitalen Wandel. Ansätze und Erträge rekonstruktiver Forschung (pp. 171-180). Klinkhardt.
- Macgilchrist, F., Rabenstein, K., Wagener-Böck, N., & Bock, A. (2023). 'Google_Suche‘: Suche als soziale Praxis in Unterricht und Schule. In M. Proske, K. Rabenstein, A. Moldenhauer, S. Thiersch, A. Bock, M. Herrle, M. Hoffmann, A. Langer, F. Macgilchrist, N. Wagener-Böck, & E. Wolf (Eds.), Schule und Unterricht im digitalen Wandel. Ansätze und Erträge rekonstruktiver Forschung (pp. 67-89).
- Proske, M., Rabenstein, K., Moldenhauer, A., Thiersch, S., Bock, A., Herrle, M., Hoffmann, M., Langer, A., Macgilchrist, F., Wagener-Böck, N., & Wolf, E. (Eds.). (2023). Schule und Unterricht im digitalen Wandel. Ansätze und Erträge rekonstruktiver Forschung. Klinkhardt. https://doi.org/10.25656/01:26251.
- Rabenstein, K., Macgilchrist, F., Wagener-Böck, N., & Bock, A. (2022). Lernkultur im digitalen Wandel. Methodologische Weichenstellungen einer ethnographischen Fallstudie. In C. Kuttner & S. Münte-Goussar (Eds.), Praxistheoretische Perspektiven auf Schule in der Kultur der Digitalität (pp. 179-196). Springer V.S. https://link.springer.com/book/9783658355654
- Rabenstein, K., & Wagener-Böck, N. (2022). Praktiken von Schüler*innen. In H. Bennewitz, H. de Boer, & S. Thiersch (Eds.), Handbuch der Forschung zu Schülerinnen und Schülern. Waxmann/UTB.
- Rabenstein, K., Wagener-Böck, N., Macgilchrist, F., & Bock, A. (2022). Interferenzen in digitalen Praktiken der Bereitstellung von unterrichtlichen Aufgaben. Ethnographische Beobachtungen in der Pandemie. Sozialer Sinn, 297-316. https://doi.org/10.1515/sosi-2022-0016
- Wagener-Böck, N., Macgilchrist, F., Rabenstein, K., & Bock, A. (2023). From automation to symmation: Ethnographic perspectives on what happens in front of the screen. Postdigital Science and Education, 5, 136–151. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00350-z
