KLUG – A blended learning concept for teacher training

The challenges currently facing history teachers are immense. Good history lessons should provide students with historical orientation and take into account competence orientation, digitalization, and inclusion. Teachers are offered support for this, e.g., through digital teaching and learning materials, but also through continuing education programs.

As part of the BMBF-funded joint project KLUG - InKLUsiv Geschichte lehren from the universities of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Tübingen and Oldenburg, the effectiveness of such courses is being tested in a control group design. A team of history didactics experts, educational psychologists, special needs teachers and history teachers developed a blended learning training series for the project group with the aim of supporting the development of subject-specific and interdisciplinary pedagogical teaching skills for the joint teaching of people with different learning and performance requirements. The criteria for effective in-service training - including the duration of the in-service training series (approx. 40 hours) - were taken into account in the design.

As part of the study, the training series was carried out with a cohort of teachers in North Rhine-Westphalia and two cohorts of teachers in Bavaria. KLUG has since been consolidated at the Academy for Teacher Training and Personnel Management (ALP) in Bavaria. In 2023 and 2024, a cohort of 50 teachers was trained and ten KLUG multipliers were also trained. Since 2023, the KLUG concept has also been continued in a further training study called digital:KLUGeschichte lehre, which focuses more strongly on digital change.

Results of the KLUG study

The effectiveness of the KLUG concept was proven with the help of the randomized, controlled intervention study:

• The students of the trained teachers were significantly better at developing their historical skills than the classes of the wait-list control group teachers.
• The students rated their teachers as significantly more enthusiastic about history after the training than classes in the wait-list control group.
• They reported receiving better support (especially more feedback).