state or some other collective. The main difference between the TSL process
in schools and learning in
many other educational situations is the decisions made on a collective level regulating pedagogical
activities. Concerning the comprehensive school, for example, the parents of the
children attending these
schools participate in the political process defining how the schools are to function. The result of this
process is stated in political documents (curriculums). Thus the students (or their representatives, i.e.
parents) participate in this process, which is not the case when education takes place in companies or
religious organizations. The employees/members do not constitute the group which ultimately decides the
educational
curriculum of a company; often there is no curriculum to agree upon.
Instructional Science?
A further possibility in determining what the model should be called is the German notion of
Unterrichtswissenschaft
or
Wissenschaft vom Unterricht,
(e.g. Adl-Amini, 1993). This term is
not easy to
translate into English. With reservations we can translate it by the expressions science of teaching or
instructional science. It seems, however, that
Unterrichts-wissenschaft
in one sense is too narrow and in
another sense too wide. It is too narrow in that it is sometimes limited to the instructional-communicative
dimension of the pedagogical process without recognizing the contextual questions included in the model
discussed.
On the other hand, it may be understood as being too wide in order to correctly reflect the model
presented in this study in that
it is contextually neutral;
Unterrichtswissenschaft
is about
Unterricht
occurring anywhere (Benner, 1991, p. 206). However this is not always the case. Schröder (1992), for
example, not only says that “Unterricht ist organisiertes Lehren und Lernen”, but also that
Unterricht
is
institutionalized by localizing
Unterricht
as an activity going on in “schools”. However, the notion of
school is extremely wide:
The concept of school is here taken in its very widest sense, not only including public and private
educational
institutions but also, in addition, school-like activities (driving school, skiing school,
sailing school, etc.) and the school-like contribution of mass media (school radio, school film, school-
TV). All these orientations [Einrichtungen] represent an institutionalized form of teaching and
learning; that is to say, instruction.
11
The model presented in this study does not primarily make use of such
a wide notion of school or
institutionalized teaching and learning. The model was primarily aimed to be used for institutionalized
education in schools following a collectively agreed-upon curriculum, where the students or their
representatives were assumed to participate in the development of the curriculum regulating educational
activities.
Theory of Instruction?
On the other hand,
the German term
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