2016, Schnitzer, Katja, Hänggi, Françoise, Tinner, Sandra

2015-11-25, Hänggi, Françoise, Fersztand, Colin, Cslovjecsek, Markus

Since 2012, the Departments of Music Education and English Didactics at the University of Applied Sciences have organised continual professional development courses in Switzerland with the aim of empowering practising teachers at primary and secondary level to make more of foreign language and music learning opportunities in their classrooms. Many of these courses were realised within the wider context of the interdisciplinary EU Comenius project "European Music Portfolio - Languages 2009-2012". This contribution gives a brief overview of how practitioner research was used as a reflective tool in the courses to continually improve them, to support learning processes and to feed into own professional development. Depending on the course, data collection was based on in-depth interviews with participants, post-course e-questionnaires, self-assessment and observation. The diversity of results reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the context and the range of interests and backgrounds of the reflective practitioners. A common thread is the light they shed in the search of a common understanding of "empowerment" in interdisciplinary and mixed-ability contexts.

2012-07-01T00:00:00Z, Hänggi, Françoise

Report on how the voices of foreign language teachers and music teachers in Switzerland piloting the interdisciplinary material created within the context of the European Music Portfolio project (2009 - 2012) influenced the design process.