Exemplariness

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Exemplarity or exemplary learning is a principle of didactics that was largely developed by Martin Wagenschein , which makes the need for didactic reduction into its core component. It is used in the didactics of the humanities , natural sciences and social science subjects.

The aim of the principle is to give the students skills in induction (abstraction), deduction (concretization) and analogy building , with the help of which they can better understand a situation.

Case analysis is the preferred method. However, the general principle is not “courage to take a gap”, as exemplary learning is often understood. It is not first and foremost about the quantitative reduction of the subject matter, but about increasing the students' intensity of understanding. Therefore, the "courage to leave gaps" is only permissible with the simultaneous "courage to be thorough, courage to look at the original". In the first step, the learners should grasp and grasp something “fundamental” using a case study. By means of transfer or analogies, deduction or induction, similarities, differences and peculiarities as well as the general are to be recognized. The application of the didactic principle of exemplarity never means saving teaching time. On the contrary, it takes a lot of time to grasp the “fundamental”. Kurt Gerhard Fischer clarifies all of this with the words: “Verba docent, exempla trahunt” - words teach, examples are carried away. With the help of the exemplar, “lazy” teaching material can be substantiated in a comprehensible way, because it is always about real and everyday examples.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Martin Wagenschein : Teaching understanding . Weinheim and Basel 1999 (Beltz) ISBN 978-3407220226 , p. 52.
  2. Fischer, Kurt Gerhard: The exemplary in politics lessons. Contributions to a theory of political education. Schwalbach / Ts. 1993.

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