What is a didactic triangle?
The didactic triangle makes the relationship between the teacher (teacher), the learner (student) and the learning object (learning material) comprehensible in a diagram. A triangle with three sides of equal length serves this purpose. At one corner the teacher is written, at the next the learner and at the last corner the learning material. This graphic creates a basis for lesson analysis and gives an overview of the didactics. Thus, the didactic triangle illustrates how the lessons are structured, thus serving the scientific field of pedagogy.
The didactic triangle
Wolfgang Klafki, a professor of educational science in Marburg, lived from 1927 to 2016, and was an important didactician in Germany, shaping teaching sample designs by teachers. Klafki was concerned with the subject and the learner. He paid attention to this relationship in the didactic triangle.
In the context of didactics, he accordingly dealt with the question of what meaning the educational content and teaching content has for the student. The didactic analysis thus forms the core of lesson planning and preparation. For this analysis, Klafki asks the following questions about the teaching content, which should serve as guiding questions for lesson planning.
- It begins with the question of the contemporary significance of the topic for the student. The next question focuses on the future, working on what meaning the topic will have in the student’s future life.
- Furthermore, the question of the structure of the topic will be dealt with, the guiding questions for this being considerations of the extent to which the topic presupposes previous knowledge, for example, etc.
- The next question deals with the exemplary significance, which also means the linking of this topic to other problems.
- The last question deals with the accessibility of the topic for the students. How must the knowledge be conveyed so that it becomes tangible and understandable for the student?
Kurt Reusser was born in 1950 and is an educator and professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Zurich.
He is concerned with didactics and video-based teaching research. In the field of didactics, Reusser is concerned with the question of how didactics and methodology can promote and develop independent learning and understanding, as well as competence-oriented didactics.
- What learning strategies are there?
- Which learning type am I?
Hilbert Meyer is a German pedagogue, who deals with didactics and became known through textbooks on didactics.
Meyer developed the idea of competence-oriented or action-oriented teaching. In his elaboration he describes that competence-oriented teaching should always contain situation- and person-related elements in balance. Furthermore, it is very important for Meyer to maintain a balance between: The teacher works out these different balance systems and makes sure that the lessons are open to the students and that they can actively participate.
Furthermore, the students should be encouraged to self-regulated learning through a differentiated learning program. The teacher has the task of responding to the individual development possibilities of the student by working in an interdisciplinary way. The students’ knowledge should be built up in a networked way and the benefit of the knowledge should be recognizable to the students in realistic application situations.
In addition, the development of problem-oriented tasks and the viewing of mistakes as learning progress are also part of the quality characteristics for competence-oriented and action-oriented teaching.
- Structuring and openness,
- Common and individual learning sequences
- Systematic and action-oriented forms of learning
Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841) was a German philosopher, psychologist and pedagogue. He made a great contribution to the development of didactics, so that basic features of his ideas can still be found in today’s teaching.
Herbart assumed that learning is not about the accumulation of knowledge, but about the meaningful combination of existing knowledge and the new learning material. The student should want to learn and thus develop an unprejudiced interest in his environment. To achieve this, Herbart’s teaching is structured as follows.
His step concept was further developed and revised by other educators.
- It starts with clarity. For the learner the new topics should be clear and understandable.This clarity refers to content, language and structure.
- This is followed by the stage of linking the new topic with already existing knowledge.
Also in this stage links and relationships within the new knowledge are established. This stage is also called association.
- Subsequently, correlations are established and the substance is classified in a system.
- From this stage the last stage develops. The practice, repetition and application of the new knowledge.
Klaus Prange was born in 1939 and is a German educationalist.
He was intensively engaged in general didactics and pedagogy. Prange describes in the didactics that the main task of the educator is to form the pupils. The educator shapes the view of the world from the pupils.
However, the learner also forms himself, Prange describes that educational influence processes can hardly be separated from independent development and are mutually dependent. August Hermann Niemeyer lived from 1754 to 1828 and was a German theologian and pedagogue. He led a seminar in Halle on the theory of teaching and education.
He also wrote books on the principles of education and teaching for parents and teachers. Niemeyer has also dealt with didactics, translating Greek and Roman classics in the field of pedagogy and publishing texts on didactics.
