Potentials of Lernwerkstatt (open-inquiry) for pre-service teachers' professional development

In the debate about scientific literacy, the OECD considers an adequate understanding of science to be essential for becoming a reflective citizen, as it is an important basis for decision-making. Learning science through open inquiry is one contribution to reach this goal. Conducting open inquiry at school is a challenging task for teachers. To support them an appropriate learning environment for pre- and in-service teacher education needs to be provided. One learning environment to experience open inquiry and to prepare teachers for scaffolding their students which is offered by some universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is called Lernwerkstatt. The German term Lernwerkstatt seems to be the most appropriate one as there is no adequate translation. To fathom the potentials of a Lernwerkstatt interviews with ten heads of Lernwerkstatt at universities were conducted and analyzed. In this paper the personal theories found in the interviews concerning the professional development through Lernwerkstatt in pre-service teacher education are presented. The personal theories found in the interviews could be related to theoretical backgrounds. Those are phenomenology, situated learning, learning environment, scaffolding and inquiry learning. Standards for pre-service teacher education were added to the analysis as a normative frame. The results suggest that Lernwerkstatt is a learning environment where open inquiry can be experienced and one’s own learning can be reflected. The interviewees stated that the experience of open inquiry makes pre-service teachers more aware of potential difficulties in learning processes and heightens the appreciation for these processes. The interviewees assume that pre-service teachers who have experienced learning in a Lernwerkstatt would use open inquiry in schools more frequently than pre-service teachers who did not have the opportunity to attend Lernwerkstatt courses.