The Dortmund Profile for Inclusive Teacher Education

DoProfiL aims to include constructive approaches of diversity in teaching and learning curriculum of future teachers. For this purpose, the project uses diversity and inclusion concepts that range from learning difficulties to giftedness, motoric and sensoric disabilites, emotional and social development, cognitive development, cultural background, language competencies, gender, social origin, and religion.
In the spirit of strategic change management, the project pursues the goal of increasing the overall quality of teacher education at universities and of developing and implementing models that address the changing demands of teacher education, especially with regard to a rising diversity in schools and universities. Therefore, new subject-specific as well as interdisciplinary concepts and teaching formats will be developed at TU Dortmund University.

This project of TU Dortmund University is conducted under the leadership of the director of the Center for Teacher Training (DoKoLL), Prof. Stephan Hußman, and the prorector diversity management, Prof. Barbara Welzel. Further parties involved in the project include several subject-didactic units, the Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences, the Educational Sciences, the Center for Higher Education (zhb): Professorship of Higher Education and the Department for Disability and Studies (DoBuS) as well as the Institute for School Development Research (IFS).

DoProfiL project

The Professorship of Higher Education was responsible for measure 3 (M3) of the project. The measure supported the transformation process towards inclusion-oriented teaching at TU Dortmund University.

Specific objectives of measure 3 were:

1. Foster a common understanding of inclusive higher education
2. Raise awareness of barriers to learning due to diversity
3. Raise awareness of teaching methods which exclude certain groups in teacher education
4. Promote inclusive teaching methods in teacher education
5. Provide opportunities for sharing best practices in inclusive teaching and learning settings

2016 – 2019

Prof. Dr. Liudvika Leišytė
(zhb, Professor for Higher Education: Member of the DoProfiL steering group and coordinator of measure 3)

Dr. Birgit Drolshagen
(zhb, DoBuS, Academic Councillor at the Department of Rehabilitation and Education: Blindness and Visual Impairment)

Carsten Bender
(Research Assistant at the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Department of Rehabilitation and Education: Blindness and Visual Impairment)

Anna-Lena Rose
(Research Assistant at zhb, Professorship of Higher Education)

Gülsen Sevdiren
(Research Assistant at zhb, Professorship of Higher Education)

Lina Tönnes
(Research Assistant at zhb, Professorship of Higher Education)

This project is funded by the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research) within the scope of the initiative "Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung"