Teacher professional learning is a long-term and complex process that does not only take place within formal lectures, exercises and seminars, but especially in authentic situations where the future teacher plans, acts, reflects and seeks meaning in his or her own practice. In recent decades, research on teacher education has increasingly emphasized that teachers should not only be passive recipients of theory, but also active co-creators of educational situations and meaningful didactic innovations. This shift from 'learning about teaching' to 'learning from teaching' and 'learning through designing' requires new methodological approaches and new spaces in which such learning can take place.

This monograph responds to this challenge by examining the professional learning of future teachers in a non-standard, yet research-stimulating environment, in the setting of a full-day summer camp with a natural science (physics) and mathematical focus. In this camp, the participants of the study, student teachers in the final phase of their studies, had the opportunity to design, implement and repeatedly modify their own educational activities for the children who participated in the camp. These activities were prepared in advance and consulted with the mentor, but modified “on the fly” in interaction with the children’s needs, the reactions of other animators, trainers and their own reflection. The camp thus represented a natural laboratory of professional learning, in which theoretical knowledge, pedagogical skills, technological tools and human improvisation came together.