Chair of Technology Didactics at Vocational College

Teacher training:

The TVD conducts research primarily on the question of how teacher training for vocational education can be further developed. The resulting sub-questions regarding the content and methods of contemporary and targeted teacher training are primarily linked to the question of its organization. The background to this is, on the one hand, that due to the serious shortage of teachers, especially in the vocational education sector, lateral entrants from the business world would like to gain further qualifications through an additional MA course alongside a professional activity or an existing activity at a school. On the other hand, the principle of project-based learning implemented at the TVD according to the principle of complete professional action creates the need for a sequence of problems ("cases") that does justice to the respective student, which means that academic teaching must be highly individualized.

The TVD is supported here by the model projects

AGORA (state of NRW, ongoing project with the aim of permanently implementing an MA course for lateral entry)

and

FAKTUR (BMBF as part of the teacher training quality offensive; project duration until 2024 with the aim of integrating the study components of vocational education and technology didactics into joint cases).

Skilled work of the future:

The implementation of digitalization, referred to as the fourth industrial revolution, will lead to a change in the content and requirements of skilled vocational work. The TVD sees itself primarily as having a regional responsibility here and is attempting to develop reliable scenarios for the skilled work of the future through macro-analyses in the region's companies and work process analyses of specific digitalized systems.

TVD is therefore a project partner within

• MITTELSTAND 4.0 Südwestfalen (BMBF project since 2017 with extension until 2020; aim: to visualize the potential of Industry 4.0 for the region)
• SDFS(Smarte Demofabrik Siegen) in combination with SLAB (Smarte Lernfabrik Achenbach); SDFS and SLAB are a private initiative of Achenbach-Buschhüten, Kreuztal

The future of engineering training:

Future engineering work will above all have to meet the demand for sustainability. This in turn means the development of appropriate university curricula which, in addition to the undeniably essential teaching of the principles and strategies of technology development, also promote the ability to assess the social, ecological and economic aspects of technology application. TVD supports curriculum work at universities by formulating and implementing the "Leonardian Oath".

Another project of the TVD is to address the question of whether and to what extent digitalized work processes (must) lead to the academization of work processes. This results above all in the question of

• the design of dual study programs (the TVD has developed the "Dual Genial" concept for this)

and

• an expansion of the "dual system of vocational training" to include the university as a place of learning to impart basic knowledge on algorithmization.

Education management in SMEs:

Industrial SMEs are the backbone of the German economy. This makes it all the more important to develop concepts to counter the latent shortage of skilled workers, particularly in the industrial and technical sectors. The TV research area "Education Management in SMEs" addresses this topic through independent research and as part of third-party funded research projects under the following aspects:

- STEM as a perspective for one's own career choice (Young Smart Cities, Erasmus+),

- Expansion of the education and training portfolio in companies (InnoVETion57, BIIBB),

- Use of AI for routine work processes,

- AR as a personnel development tool (GOOCZ, Erasmus+),

- Vocational trainers 4.0: further qualification of vocational training staff (cooperation with bfw).

The TVD cooperates closely with the Buschhütten campus to describe and evaluate current and future requirements in industrial-technical skilled work and in the implementation of training measures. In all cases, the COMET competence measurement procedure is used as an evaluation tool to show how holistically

- must be considered in the industrial-technical field,

- AI can be incorporated in the process,

- technical and social sciences must cooperate in professional practice.

A list of all current TVD research projects can be found here.