The sudden impact of the COVID-19 pandemic challenged universities to provide students with online teaching and learning settings that were both immediately applicable and supportive of quality learning. This resulted in a broad variety of synchronous and asynchronous online settings of teaching and learning. While some courses balanced both kinds, others offered either predominantly synchronous or asynchronous teaching and learning. In a survey study with students (N=3,056) and teachers (N=396) from a large German university, we explored whether a predominance of synchronous or asynchronous teaching and learning settings in higher education was associated with certain student experiences and outcomes. Additionally, we examined how well these two types of teaching and learning settings support students’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness proposed by self-determination theory (SDT). Data were collected after the first online semester due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results imply that from the students’ perspective, the teaching methods involved in the two settings of teaching and learning differ with regard to their potential to support social interaction and to support basic psychological needs as proposed by SDT. Students who studied mostly in synchronous settings reported more peer-centered activities such as feedback in comparison to students in mostly asynchronous settings. In contrast, teachers perceived fewer differences between teaching methods in synchronous and asynchronous settings, especially regarding feedback activities. Further, students in mostly synchronous settings reported greater support of their basic psychological needs for competence support and relatedness as well as a greater overall satisfaction with the online term compared to students in mostly asynchronous settings. Across all students, greater fulfillment of psychological needs and higher technology acceptance coincided with outcomes that are more favorable. Implications for the post-pandemic classroom are drawn.

The professional development of academic teaching staff has become increasingly visible in higher education, even though there is still not enough evidence on how teachers change through such initiatives. Because flexibility in teaching is a commonly found demand, knowledge and core beliefs of one’s own ability to teach are pivotal. We present data on N = 73 instructors at a German university who participated in a comprehensive training programme on academic teaching. Self-reported data on teaching-related self-efficacy, self-concept, and subjective knowledge about teaching and learning were collected in a pre–post design at the beginning of the programme and afterwards. Improvement in all three variables was found over time.

Self-monitoring is an integral part of self-regulated learning. Tools that foster learners’ monitoring, such as learning journals, portfolios, or rubrics, are supposed to promote self-regulation and to improve performance. The aim of this meta-analysis was to examine the effectiveness of tools designed to foster monitoring on learning-related variables (academic achievement, self-regulated learning, and motivation). As these tools vary greatly in their design and the addressed components, this meta-analysis aims to uncover how such tools should be implemented to foster monitoring most effectively. The results of this meta-analysis, integrating 109 effect sizes with 3492 participants from 32 intervention studies, supported a reactivity effect by revealing a moderate effect size on academic achievement (d = 0.42), and low effects on self-regulated learning (d = 0.19) and motivation (d = 0.17). These effects were moderated by characteristics of the tool and their implementation. Effect sizes were highest for tools that (1) focused on the monitoring of both learning content as well as learning behavior, (2) stimulated metacognitive monitoring, and (3) were implemented in shorter studies. On a descriptive level, higher effects were found in favor of monitoring interventions that included teacher feedback on self-monitoring entries and allowed learners to directly revise their work based on this feedback. The findings show that there is substantial variation across tools, which yield theoretical and methodological implications on how to foster monitoring as important parts of the self-regulation cycle.

Zusammenfassung: Um Unterricht durch digitale Medien lernwirksam gestalten zu können, sollten Lehrkräfte über die notwendigen Kompetenzen für einen didaktisch angemessenen und reflektieren Einsatz von Technologien verfügen. Neben der Verbesserung der technischen Infrastruktur an Schulen ist es daher notwendig, Lehrkräfte bei ihrer Professionalisierung zu unterstützen. Lehrkräfte an deutschen Schulen zeigen allerdings eine eher zurückhaltende Teilnahme an Fortbildungsangeboten zu digitalen Themen, was auf eine fehlende Passung zu den realen Bedarfen hinweisen kann. Der vorliegende Beitrag widmet sich daher Präferenzen von Lehrkräften zu Inhalten und Gestaltungsmerkmalen von Fortbildungen zu digitalen Medien und berichtet dazu Ergebnisse einer Befragung von Gymnasiallehrkräften (N = 238). Um möglichst zielgruppenspezifische Ergebnisse zu erhalten, wurden über eine latente Profilanalyse mit Personenmerkmalen (technologisches und technologisch-pädagogisches Wissen, Selbstwirksamkeit, Mediennutzung) drei Profile identifiziert und im Hinblick auf ihre Präferenzen verglichen. Die Ergebnisse weisen auf eine Vielfalt an thematischen Wünschen sowie auf die Notwendigkeit einer bedarfsgerechten Gestaltung von Fortbildungen hin. Abschließend werden zusammenfassende Empfehlungen zur Gestaltung von Lehrkräftefortbildungen zu digitalen Medien formuliert.

This paper offers reflections on the role of context for teaching development programmes, stimulated by participating in European staff mobility. It is presented in two parts. Part 1 discusses the differences between the national and institutional contexts encountered during a UK-German partnership, as case studies of the varying contexts in which such programmes are situated. The following differences emerged as crucial: whether programmes were compulsory, credit-bearing, formally assessed, and located in a teaching or research-focused institutional environment. Part 2 uses selected publications as exemplars to explore the extremely variable ways in which context features in research on teaching development programmes. With reference to theorisations of context, it is concluded that future research should more explicitly consider the varying contexts of teaching development programmes and investigate a wider range of national and institutional contexts.