Teaching Written Argumentation to High School Students Using Peer Feedback Methods—Case Studies on the Effectiveness of Digital Learning Units in Teacher Professionalization

Abstract

Fostering argumentation competences in geography classrooms is critical from both a language-aware and content-complexity perspective. Peer feedback can be a successful method for geography teachers to successfully promote written argumentation skills in the (political geography) classroom. The peer feedback method has many empirically verified advantages in educational research and is also successfully used in bilingual education. To ensure that future teachers have verified methods at their fingertips, geography education is in demand by dealing professionally with OERs. The paper examines the extent to which a group of student teachers (n = 16) can be professionalized through an OER unit in how they use peer feedback methods to foster (written) argumentation competence in their future pupils. The research question of the paper is to what extent and in which areas does the OER unit improve the teaching competencies of student teachers in the area of promoting the argumentation competencies of their future students with peer feedback methods? This study provides highly relevant impulses for the future implementation of language-aware professionalization of geography teachers using digital learning units.

Keywords

• social sciences
• geography
• argumentation
• peer feedback
• language awareness
• OER