Individual support

Individual support is a comprehensive concept of school activity based on a pedagogical and didactic approach oriented towards the individual student.

overview

Individual support is a political term that is not based on a uniformly recognized definition - an essential feature is the student-centered view.

The focus of individual support is on the children, who are valued as personalities. In accordance with their initial learning situation , they are promoted in such a way that they can develop their talents, skills and competencies as best as possible and thus achieve the best possible educational success. It is not about teaching each child and young person individually - in the sense of "separately". Individual support means creating learning situations in which the students can actively develop their skills, take responsibility for their learning process and recognize and reflect on their learning progress - without leaving the class . Minimum standards or comparable target formulations provide a point of reference for student performance, but they do not have to be achieved by everyone at the same time and in the same way. Instead of the class as a homogeneous unit, the focus is on the students as the subjects of their learning.

development

The topic of individual support has its roots in reform pedagogy , which has also placed the individual child at the center of its considerations and didactic concepts. The German Education Council took up this idea in the structural plan for the education system of 1970. As early as the debate in the 1970s, the topic of internal differentiation (internal differentiation ) was linked to the question of equal opportunities .

Today, individual support is primarily addressed in the context of the heterogeneity discourse and the discourse about educational opportunities and social origin. As part of its recommendations for reforming the education system in 2001, the Education Forum coined the term individual support and originally linked it with the political demand for the introduction of all-day schools. However, individual support does not automatically succeed better in all-day schools - it must rather be understood as independent of any school structure reforms.

The demand for more individual support is primarily derived from the results of international performance studies on the one hand and those of school system comparisons on the other. Even if research on the effectiveness of individual support is still rather sparse, its fundamental importance is not questioned: For Hilbert Meyer , individual support is a quality criterion for good teaching, and Andreas Helmke also mentions individualization in the context of dealing with heterogeneity as an indicator of teaching quality .

In special education , individual support has long been a high priority; at special needs schools it is usually an integral part of the school and teaching culture. Particularly in connection with the inclusion required by the UN Disability Rights Convention , individual support is now also gaining importance for mainstream schools.

Current situation in Germany

Individual support is anchored in the laws and decrees of many federal states. In North Rhine-Westphalia, individual support has been included as an enforceable right in the School Act , while Lower Saxony's School Act picks up on the fact that individual support should be made possible in accordance with talented individuals. In 2007, Baden-Württemberg made individual support the main theme of its education policy.

In practice, however, the implementation of individual support is still in its infancy in many places. While it can be stated that the topic of individual support is perceived as increasingly important, "the teachers ... succeed only very hesitantly in developing a learning culture and creating a learning environment that enables individual support"

This may be due to the fact that a sustainable switch to individual support requires fundamental changes in all areas of a school. In the classroom, several factors are necessary in addition to the student-oriented and student-activating approaches known from reform pedagogy in order to create a structured learning environment that enables the teacher to respond better to individual students and enables the students to learn independently. Teachers, for example, need diagnostic skills and procedures in order to be able to identify the needs and potential of all children and young people. You need knowledge of forms and procedures, methods and instruments of individualization. This includes knowledge of learning arrangements, the importance of the designed space, feedback procedures, and changes in performance documentation and evaluation.

The necessary changes are a question of school development and must be decided and implemented across schools. If initiatives are only initiated by individual teachers and are not anchored in an organizational or systematic way, individual support can only have a limited effect. In the transnational case study of the EU-MAIL project. the specialist groups for Germany observed that the individualization of learning in none of the schools of the project was implemented in accordance with the objectives. The Nordic as well as the English experts named as aggravating working conditions "a lack of means for the targeted language support of the high number of students with a migration background, large classes and a lack of teamwork or the lack of professional exchange in colleges." The international experts also observed the German teachers a much more extensive repertoire of methods than that of teachers in other countries.

Individual advancement and constructivism

The principle of individual support corresponds to the constructivist view of learning (cf. constructivist didactics ), according to which knowledge cannot be imparted, but can only be built up in self-organization, thus learning as an active process is largely determined by the individual and his construction of the world and reality becomes. From this point of view, the teacher's task is primarily to provide stimulating learning opportunities and to support the learners on their individual learning path.

criticism

There are also critical voices about the demand for individual advancement in heterogeneous classes, if it is produced with particularly high demands. In a critical examination of school pedagogical expectations, Beate Wischer raises the question of how to deal with the significant discrepancy that can be ascertained between the demands formulated in the school pedagogical discourse and the concrete teaching practice, which exists both with regard to the attitudes and the methodological-didactic handling of heterogeneous learning groups. She comes to the conclusion that one thing is often overlooked in the conducted discourse: "An orientation of the requirements on the individual level of development [of the teacher]". This orientation would mean that the heterogeneity of the teaching staff would be taken into account - and ultimately lead to adopting “a strategy of small steps”, in which the existing knowledge of the teachers is taken more into account.

literature

• Schumann, Frank (2013/14): Individualize the acquisition of competencies - discovering and understanding. Weekly plan work - weekly plans 1 to 7. In: FSchumann.COM, Stuttgart 2013/14. (Article, PDF) , (Weekly plans 1 to 7) .
• Solzbacher, Müller-Using, Doll (Ed.) (2012): Strengthening resources! Individual support as a challenge for the primary school. Munich: Carl Link Verlag.
• Solzbacher, Behrensen, Sauerhering, Schwer (2011): Doing justice to every child? Perspectives and experiences of primary school teachers. Munich: Carl Link Verlag.
• B. Behrensen, M. Sauerhering, C. Solzbacher, W. Warnecke (Eds.) (2011): The individual child in view. Individual support in the day care center. Freiburg: Herder Verlag.
• Schumann, Frank (2010): Intelligent Individual Support - Productive Use of Heterogeneity. In: Homepage of the Math College - Private Institute for School Mathematics, Wertheim 2010. (Article, PDF) .
• Klippert, Heinz (2010): Heterogeneity in the classroom. How teachers can use it effectively and save time. Weinheim and Basel: Beltz Verlag.
• Kremer H.-Hugo / Zoyke, Andrea (eds.) (2010): Individual support in vocational training: Foundation and approach in the context of research and development projects. Paderborn: Eusl Verlag.
• Höhmann, Katrin / Kopp, Rainer / Schäfers, Heidemarie / Demmer, Marianne (eds.) (2009): Learning about borders. On the way to a learning culture that starts with the individual. Opladen and Farmington Hills: Verlag Barbara Budrich.
• Paradies, Liane / Sorrentino, Wencke / Greving, Johannes (2009): 99 tips: Individual support. Berlin: Cornelsen Scriptor.
• Kunze, Ingrid / Solzbacher, Claudia (eds.) (2008): Individual support in secondary levels I and II. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.
• Kunze, Ingrid / Solzbacher, Claudia (ed.) (2016): Individual support in secondary levels I and II. 5th, updated and edited edition. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.
• Boller, Sebastian / Rosowski, Elke / Stroth, Thea (eds.) (2007): Heterogeneity in school and teaching. Approaches to the pedagogical approach to diversity. Weinheim and Basel: Beltz Verlag, pp. 32–41.
• Höhmann, Katrin (Hrsg.) (2005): Promoting talent in heterogeneous learning groups. Materials for diagnostics, support plans and suggestions for teaching practice. Dortmund: IFS publishing house.

Web links

• Collection of information and material on individual support in the Bertelsmann Foundation's “Learning Diversity” wiki in cooperation with the Center for Educational Media in the Internet eV
• Lower Saxony Institute for Early Childhood Education and Development at www.nifbe.de
• Project to support individual support in the area of ​​spelling on www.lernserver.de
• Business education graduate college for individual support: Competence development and diagnostics in vocational training at the Department for Business and Human Resource Education at the University of Paderborn
• Software for creating individual funding plans www.foerderplaner.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Working staff in the office of the Federal-State Commission for Educational Planning and Research Funding, Recommendations of the Education Forum ( Memento of the original from February 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved November 11, 2010. 
2. ↑ So Klieme, Eckhard (2009): Support individually, but how? - The implementation of the “paradigm shift” at all levels of the school system. Presentation from December 15, 2009  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved November 12, 2010.  
3. ↑ Kunze, Ingrid (2008): Reasons and problem areas of individual support in schools - preliminary considerations for an empirical study . In: Kunze, Ingrid / Solzbacher, Claudia (ed.): Individual support in secondary level I and II, pp. 13–26.
4. ↑ Meyer, Hilbert (2004): What is good teaching? Berlin: Cornelsen Scriptor, pp. 17f., Pp. 86-103 (contribution by Ela Eckert). Helmke, Andreas (2009): Teaching quality and teacher professionalism. Diagnosis, evaluation and improvement of teaching. Seelze-Velber: Kallmeyer, pp. 244-259.
5. ↑ That is the conclusion of the study carried out by Kunze and Solzbacher on individual support in schools in secondary level I and II in the Osnabrück area: Solzbacher, Claudia (2008): Positions of teachers on individual support in secondary level I - results of an empirical study . In: Kunze, Ingrid / Solzbacher, Claudia (ed.): Individual support in secondary level I and II, pp. 27–42, here p. 41.
6. ↑ Klieme, Eckhard (2009): Support individually, but how? - The implementation of the “paradigm shift” at all levels of the school system. Presentation from December 15, 2009  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved November 12, 2010.  
7. ↑ Solzbacher, Claudia (2008), p. 41.
8. ↑ European Mixed Ability and Individualized Learning - A Comenius project within the Socrates program of the European Union. Accessed on November 5, 2010. See also Höhmann, Katrin / Kopp, Rainer / Schäfers, Heidemarie / Demmer, Marianne (eds.) (2009): Learning about borders. On the way to a learning culture that starts with the individual . Opladen and Farmington Hills: Verlag Barbara Budrich.
9. ↑ Schäfers, Heidemarie (2009): The learning individual or how is actually learned? In: Höhmann, Katrin / Kopp, Rainer / Schäfers, Heidemarie / Demmer, Marianne (eds.): Learning about borders, pp. 41–64, here p. 53.
10. ↑ Wischer, Beate (2007): Heterogeneity as a complex requirement for teacher action . In: Boller, Sebastian / Rosowski, Elke / Stroth, Thea (eds.): Heterogeneity in school and teaching, pp. 32–41.
11. ↑ Wischer, Beate (2007), p. 39.