“The Value of Mixed Teaching Methods in the Context …
351
Germany wants to show their progress concerning the SDG’s and what the next goals
are for the future. Besides the country’s internal strategies, the federal government
also engages on an international level in the progress of the SDG’s. The Ministry of
environmental issues and the ministry of developmental issues started the initiative
“Partners for Review” to cooperate with international representatives of the science
community as well as the economic community and many more. The initiative should
ensure the implantation and monitoring mechanisms of the SDG’s. For this year the
focus of Germany was on the SDG of equal treatment of the genders and the inclusion of every human being on national and international level (Federal Ministry for
Economic Cooperation and Development 2019).
The SDGs thus form a core element of international and national policy against
climate change and in any case need to be integrated into academic teaching in
Germany. In order to achieve this, different teaching methods of the good practice
event were established. In the following, these four fields will be explained in more
detail.
Field 1: Basics (disciplinary—receptive)
One of the earlier approaches to learning theories is John B. Carroll’s (1989) model
of school-based learning, which assumes that knowledge is taught in a disciplinary
and receptive way. In this model he distinguishes five different variables which are
necessary for success at school. The first three refer to the time a learner needs to learn
knowledge, the remaining two describe variables related to learning success. Carroll
refers to the time it takes a learner to learn a particular course, to the extent that it
is sufficient to master it successfully, as the “aptitude”. A high “aptitude” assumes
that under the best conditions (motivation, explanation, etc.), the learner needs very
little time to master a particular topic. A low aptitude assumes that the learner needs
more time than the average under best conditions. “Opportunity to learn” is the
second variable in Carroll’s model and refers to the time a learner has available to
learn a particular subject. If this variable is related to today’s university life, it can
be assumed that students have too little time to learn and therefore the stress level
of these students increases (Töpper 2016). “Perseverance” describes the motivation
variable in Carroll’s model and refers to the length of time a learner is willing to
learn. It is the shortest of the three time variables and refers to a learner’s ability to
learn, minus the time during which he is unwilling to learn. The variable is based on
the theory of operant conditioning by B. F. Skinner (Iversen 1992). Skinner describes
as a supporter of behaviourism that living beings acquire behaviour better if they are
either rewarded or punished for it. If this is now applied to the present day, it can be
said that students have a higher motivation to learn if they can get a good grade for it
or if they want to avoid a bad one. The fourth and fifth variables in Carroll’s model are
“quality of instruction” and “ability to understand this instruction”. The two variables
are difficult to separate in this model because Carroll does not really describe how he
defines the quality of the statement. However, the example of a lecture can be used
to explain this very well. Carroll describes that the quality depends on the clarity of
the task. If the task of the respective lecture is clear to the student and he can work
on the required material for preparation, he needs less time to understand the learned
351
Germany wants to show their progress concerning the SDG’s and what the next goals
are for the future. Besides the country’s internal strategies, the federal government
also engages on an international level in the progress of the SDG’s. The Ministry of
environmental issues and the ministry of developmental issues started the initiative
“Partners for Review” to cooperate with international representatives of the science
community as well as the economic community and many more. The initiative should
ensure the implantation and monitoring mechanisms of the SDG’s. For this year the
focus of Germany was on the SDG of equal treatment of the genders and the inclusion of every human being on national and international level (Federal Ministry for
Economic Cooperation and Development 2019).
The SDGs thus form a core element of international and national policy against
climate change and in any case need to be integrated into academic teaching in
Germany. In order to achieve this, different teaching methods of the good practice
event were established. In the following, these four fields will be explained in more
detail.
Field 1: Basics (disciplinary—receptive)
One of the earlier approaches to learning theories is John B. Carroll’s (1989) model
of school-based learning, which assumes that knowledge is taught in a disciplinary
and receptive way. In this model he distinguishes five different variables which are
necessary for success at school. The first three refer to the time a learner needs to learn
knowledge, the remaining two describe variables related to learning success. Carroll
refers to the time it takes a learner to learn a particular course, to the extent that it
is sufficient to master it successfully, as the “aptitude”. A high “aptitude” assumes
that under the best conditions (motivation, explanation, etc.), the learner needs very
little time to master a particular topic. A low aptitude assumes that the learner needs
more time than the average under best conditions. “Opportunity to learn” is the
second variable in Carroll’s model and refers to the time a learner has available to
learn a particular subject. If this variable is related to today’s university life, it can
be assumed that students have too little time to learn and therefore the stress level
of these students increases (Töpper 2016). “Perseverance” describes the motivation
variable in Carroll’s model and refers to the length of time a learner is willing to
learn. It is the shortest of the three time variables and refers to a learner’s ability to
learn, minus the time during which he is unwilling to learn. The variable is based on
the theory of operant conditioning by B. F. Skinner (Iversen 1992). Skinner describes
as a supporter of behaviourism that living beings acquire behaviour better if they are
either rewarded or punished for it. If this is now applied to the present day, it can be
said that students have a higher motivation to learn if they can get a good grade for it
or if they want to avoid a bad one. The fourth and fifth variables in Carroll’s model are
“quality of instruction” and “ability to understand this instruction”. The two variables
are difficult to separate in this model because Carroll does not really describe how he
defines the quality of the statement. However, the example of a lecture can be used
to explain this very well. Carroll describes that the quality depends on the clarity of
the task. If the task of the respective lecture is clear to the student and he can work
on the required material for preparation, he needs less time to understand the learned