Prof. Dr. Winnie-Karen Giera

Born in Potsdam, I received a scholarship from the Foundation for the Promotion of Gifted Students in Vocational Education and completed Master of Education degree in German and political education at the “Leuphana University” in Lueneburg in 2013. Afterwards I did my doctorate on a part-time basis at the Institute for German Language, Literature and Didactics until my disputation in April 2019. My doctoral topic was an intervention study with ninth graders and vocational school students in a career-oriented writing project at several secondary and vocational schools. This work received an award from the Faculty of Education in 2019. Parallel to my doctoral studies and teaching positions, I completed the second state examination for secondary school teaching with distinction in Verden in 2015. As the next step of my career, I taught students at the “Integrierte Sekundarschule Jungfernheide”, before I moved to the “Theodor-Fontane-Oberschule” in Ketzin/Havel and became a civil servant. I taught German, political education, and career orientation in the subject of business-work-technology, and was the class teacher of an inclusive class for several years. Through my numerous teaching projects with extracurricular institutions from political, economic, and cultural fields, I received the award “Teacher of the Year” from the state of Brandenburg. My current research investigates secondary school students' writing skills, reading skills, debating skills and their skills concerning scenic acting as well as their feedback behavior and attitudes in these domains. The research has been implemented through different instructional projects and intervention studies in extracurricular and school settings in which secondary school students with and without language support needs participate. For this purpose, I envision an interdisciplinary collaboration of different chairs.