Margaretha G., Apprentice Trainee at the Grundschule Leinach

After my studies at the Julius-Maximilians-University in Würzburg, I am now in my first year as a apprentice trainee. Working at school and learning in the seminar gives me a lot of pleasure, even though I have the feeling in some situations, despite my studies, that I don't know enough to be able to really teach competently.

I don't feel that way when I prepare a mathematics lesson. I am happy every time I am allowed to take over a maths lesson from my supervising teacher, because I notice that I feel competent in this subject, both professionally and didactically, thanks to my studies. In no other of the subjects I studied was I prepared for my future work in such a practical way as in mathematics. Especially in the didactics of mathematics, we were presented with concrete teaching materials, which we were also allowed to experiment with. In intensive seminar sessions, a wide variety of task formats were thought through, tested and questioned.

I also feel my subject didactic skills with regard to mathematics in the seminar when I can even give advanced seminarians tips on their mathematics lessons.

I would recommend the opportunity to help younger students learn during their studies as a maths didactics tutor, while at the same time deepening practical content through teaching and earning money on the side!

On the other hand, you hardly ever need the content from the academic study of mathematics in the everyday life of a primary school. However, as I have learned from exchanges with seminar colleagues, this is the case with every major subject. This subject-specific knowledge is used more as a background in order to be clear about the mathematical-logical structure of the content of a mathematics teaching sequence and to be able to explain mathematical relationships to the pupils in a comprehensible way.