Profile areas
The University of Cologne has a strong research landscape in educational sciences, subject-specific didactics, and subject sciences, both with and beyond school relevance.
Research topics in Cologne cover a diverse range of content and methods. For example, researchers examine how subject-specific and interdisciplinary learning processes among students are structured, how teaching methods can be designed to be effective for learning and how to develop teachers' professional skills.
Research topics in teacher education
Core areas
- Expertise and learning
- Digitality and digitalization
- Inclusion, heterogeneity and difference
- Professionalization and professionalism in schools
- Health and Well-Being
- Education for sustainable development
Selected innovative research opportunities
Digitality: Escape Climate Change Initiative (ECCI)
The Cologne Department of Geography and its Didactics (at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences) is developing digital games for use in the classroom as part of the Europe-wide ECCI project funded by the European Commission. The relevance and efficiency of this innovative, game-based learning approach in the form of escape games is being investigated.
Students acquire new knowledge in a playful way and independently develop solutions to the challenges posed by climate change in European cities.
Professional teaching skills for effective classroom management (TCM)
One of the University of Cologne’s main areas of research focuses on how teachers acquire skills. Measuring skills at various points in time, from university studies to teacher traineeship and entry into the profession, we can gain insight into how these skills are developed and identify ways to optimize learning for (prospective) teachers.
The TCM project (Teacher Professional Competence for Effective Classroom Management) measures a teacher’s skills in classroom management. This project, backed by the Faculty of Human Sciences, is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) as part of a lead agency agreement between Germany and Switzerland.
The Startchancen programme: Centre of Excellence for Language Education (FKOM)
The Faculty of Arts and Humanities’ Language Education department (FKOM) is part of a German-wide network that provides scientific support for the Startchancen programme. This programme researches the effectiveness of measures to secure and strengthen students’ basic skills in reading, writing and listening.
Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Startchancen programme provides targeted support to schools with a high proportion of socially disadvantaged pupils, with the goal of separating educational success from social origin to create more equal opportunities.
Sustainable financial education (NaFi-Get-Aus)
The NaFi-Get-Aus project (Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, investigates how sustainable financial education can be effectively integrated into vocational training. To this end, it develops practical offers for teachers and students.
The project is part of a nationwide funding programme that supports basic research on financial education in Germany, aiming to develop practical measures to improve financial education at different stages of the education system.