Anna Gronostaj

Anna is primarily responsible for the School Barometer and the research program of the German School Award, “What Makes a Good School?” within the Foundation’s education portfolio. She also oversees external evaluation studies of school development initiatives implemented in the education sector.

Anna studied psychology at Freie Universität Berlin, worked at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development during her studies, and completed her PhD at the University of Kassel on self-regulated learning in the classroom. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Potsdam in the field of empirical classroom and intervention research, she focused on instructional quality in heterogeneous learning groups and on the effectiveness of professional development programs for teachers.

She is particularly interested in co-construction between educational practice, educational research, and education administration, as well as in the impact of school and classroom development initiatives—in essence, the central question: How can these different fields work together to create more good schools in Germany? Her interest in what defines a good school is not purely academic. As a former student of Offene Schule Waldau, which later received the German School Award, she experienced first-hand how a good school can shape one’s life.