Action-Oriented Teaching in Learning Fields
Handlungsorientierter Lernfeldunterricht — subject-didactic reconstructions and pragmatic reflections on the relational fabric of teaching at vocational schools
The doctoral research of indeson founder Dr Rainer Gerke examines what happens when vocational schooling shifts its curricular anchor from the systematics of an academic subject to occupational action structures — the German learning-field (Lernfeld) reform. Combining subject-didactic theory with pragmatist philosophy of education and a three-stage empirical study among vocational students and teachers, the dissertation argues that action orientation is indispensable for learning-field teaching, and shows where classroom reality still falls short of the reform's intent.
The research problem
German vocational schooling underwent a fundamental curricular modernisation: learning situations organised in occupational learning fields replaced the conventional structure of subject-systematic content. This pragmatic turn opens space for creative learning arrangements and changes the traditional roles of teachers and learners — but a decade into the reform, its effectiveness had not been sufficiently examined. The dissertation addresses this research gap: it problematises the quality of impact of the learning-field concept and reflects it against the pragmatic approach the reform intended.
Theoretical foundation
The work grounds action-oriented teaching in the pragmatist tradition — John Dewey's experience-based learning, Charles S. Peirce's logic of abduction, and Georg Kerschensteiner's vocational pedagogy. Its analytical core is the complete cycle of action (informing, planning, deciding, executing, controlling, evaluating) and the question of how learning arrangements of increasing complexity can produce not inert knowledge but intelligent, practically consequential knowledge and good habits of thinking.
Empirical design
A three-stage iterative study examined how students and teachers perceive and use action-oriented learning arrangements:
- 1First iteration: 54 participants surveyed with contrasting question pairs after completing a complex action-oriented learning arrangement
- 2Second iteration: 229 participants across all three years of vocational training, surveyed with closed questions
- 3Third iteration: 28 teachers and instruction experts, surveyed with closed questions
The five theses of the disputation
Presented to the Faculty of Education of the University of Erfurt on 16 June 2009 (rendered here in English; the originals are German).
Action-oriented forms of learning create a specific relational fabric in school and classroom. Compared with subject-systematic forms, they are aligned with practically usable occupational capabilities. Action-oriented learning-field teaching enables, beyond subject learning, cross-disciplinary personal growth — when the products of instruction have effects beyond the school context. This requires learning environments in which learners can unfold their individual growth potential.
Classroom learning stimuli depend on whether learners' experiences with imaginable practical consequences can be drawn upon. Pragmatic patterns of thinking shape how each learner intellectually copes with classroom problems: every student develops an individual method, built from world-disclosing experiences that help or block them, for handling problematic situations of working life and everyday life.
The primary aim of action orientation in teaching is the formation of good habits of thinking. Inferences oriented to practical consequences call into question behavioural habits that become problematic in current action. Good thinking habits are not primarily training in logic or acquisition of knowledge, but intellectual curiosity that makes learners take initiative. Abductive reasoning interrogates practical consequences to discover their actual, action-practical meaning.
Not instruction as lecturing, but the stimulation of individual learning processes through arrangements of increasing complexity is the centre of action-oriented learning-field teaching. It is not only about conveying context-specific functional knowledge, but about reflecting occupationally significant chains of reasoning with it. Action-complex arrangements whose products reach beyond the classroom produce applicable knowledge and reorganise existing experience.
Teaching and learning are not only purpose-free pursuit of truth; they must also be directed at purposeful action beyond the classroom. A learning environment matching the complexity of the world of work lets learners train their individual learning dispositions — supported by cooperation with out-of-school partners, multimedia infrastructure and group-based forms of learning.
Selected empirical findings
Across the iterations, students consistently endorsed the building blocks of action-oriented arrangements:
- 195% of first-iteration participants found computer use helpful for learning; 62% in the broader second iteration
- 285% (first iteration) and 78% (second iteration) were motivated to solve work tasks independently in group work
- 389% and 82% respectively could imagine multimedia infrastructure as a matter-of-course learning tool
- 478% and 76% respectively saw complex work tasks as a way to develop occupational competence
The teacher survey qualified this picture: while 75% of the 28 surveyed teachers and instruction experts agreed that complex work tasks build occupational competence, only 55% considered independent problem-solving in group work helpful — the dissertation's interim conclusion is that learners embrace complex, cooperative, technology-supported arrangements, while teaching staff still tend to prefer conventional forms of instruction. Closing that gap is precisely where the theses locate the didactic work.
Gerke, R. (2009): Handlungsorientierter Lernfeldunterricht — Fachdidaktische Rekonstruktionen und pragmatische Reflexionen im Beziehungsgefüge des Unterrichts an der Berufsschule. Doctoral dissertation, University of Erfurt.
- Author
- Dr phil. Rainer Gerke
- Institution
- Faculty of Education, University of Erfurt, Germany
- Doctoral defense
- Erfurt, 16 June 2009
- Supervisor
- Prof. Dr. Manfred Eckert
- Grade
- Magna cum laude
- Original title
- Handlungsorientierter Lernfeldunterricht — Fachdidaktische Rekonstruktionen und pragmatische Reflexionen im Beziehungsgefüge des Unterrichts an der Berufsschule (German)