Martin, what is your work assignment in the TrainDL project?

My area of responsibility is in the work package Evaluations and Quality Assurance. Our task is to evaluate the interventions (training courses) in a targeted manner so that the results on the one hand make modification potential for further training courses visible. On the other hand, these results will also be a basis for the (final) Policy Recommendations.

How do you implement these tasks?

We use various empirical instruments before and after the interventions. Written questionnaires allow us to obtain quantifiable and thus comparable results. With qualitative oral interviews, comparability is limited. But here the participants can comment in more detail, for instance, on their impressions of the training, the relevance of the topics data literacy & AI and their assessment of how well they can be integrated into the classroom. The results then are to be interpreted.

From your perspective, how does working in iterative project designs like TrainDL work?

The basic principle of iterative design is that we work on processes, instruments, training courses and such in a loop and see how successful we are each time. Depending on this, elements can be maintained or modified/improved. From my experience, the two most important principles in a design like this are: Maintaining close coordination in the project. This can mean discussing and implementing potential changes as soon as possible. In addition, the project goals should always be kept in mind.

What did you find out in the first cycle that you find particularly exciting and want to talk about?

It was nice to see that the teachers are very interested in the interventions and the curiosity in the topics of data literacy & AI is correspondingly high. The great potential for change in these topics is something that is universally addressed. This has become very tangible and concrete with the freely accessible publication of ChatGPT in the time frame of the first cycle. Accordingly, it has already been brought up in interviews with teachers in various contexts.