Lernen durch Begegnung. Evaluation der Initiative Connect2Learn

Abstract

From 2015 to 2018, approximately 20 activities took place at the University of Teacher
Education Styria under the collective term "Connect2Learn" (C2L), which had the
common goal of facilitating encounters between refugees, teachers and learners in
different courses, taking didactic considerations into account (Pichler & Pongratz,
2017). The research project will evaluate essential sub-activities of the overall
initiative. To this end, the documents produced in the course of the initiative so far are
currently being subjected to a deductive content analysis in order to be able to
conduct group discussions or individual interviews with participants later on the basis
of the insights gained from this. The aim is to collect, describe and document the
productive learning and growth experiences of those involved in the initiative. At the
same time, it should be reconstructed as far as possible which factors made these
productive experiences possible and promoted them, and which factors inhibited,
hindered or possibly prevented them. Based on these findings, it will be presented
what encounter initiatives of this kind can achieve in the field of cultural contact and
how they can be successfully organised. The concrete methodologies and didactics
of the contact events will also be discussed, especially the "World Café", which was
frequently used in the project.