Synergetic Teacher Education for Teaching at Vocational Schools (TUD-Sylber-BBS)

The package of measures “Synergetic Teacher Education for Teaching at Vocational Schools”, initiated by the German Federal and State Governments as part of the “Quality Offensive Teacher Education”, aims to solve the specific problems of this type of teacher training degree program, such as a lack of prospective students, unsatisfactory pass-through rates and high fluctuation, and to achieve a sustained improvement in the quality of studying. In order to accomplish this, the participants focus on the two main areas of student recruitment as well as quality and structural development in a total of 6 interdisciplinary sub-projects.

The measures in the main area of student recruitment are aimed at increasing the matriculation figures in the teacher training degree courses in commercial/technical as well as business/administrative subjects and in that of commercial and administrative (business education) subjects, which are most affected by recruitment problems.

For this purpose, in subproject 1, concepts and contents are being developed for tailored student marketing based on an empirical target group analysis. These concepts and contents will then be consolidated in a cross-institutional recruitment strategy of TU Dresden for the degree program for teaching at vocational schools.

Closely related to this is subproject 2, which focuses in particular on the group of vocationally qualified entrants without “Abitur” (German high school diploma) as students to be recruited. It is intended ‒ by adapting structures for studying to the professional/biographical characteristics of this target group and by developing a specific coaching program ‒ to increase permanently the attractiveness of the vocational teacher training degree program for atypical student groups and to ensure success in their studies.

In the main area of quality and structural development, the focus is on the two fields of action of practical relevance and coherence, two central challenges in the design of profession-oriented teacher training degree programs.

In subproject 3, the conception of teacher training is explicitly regarded as the joint responsibility of specialist sciences, didactics of individual subjects and educational sciences. Their closer interlocking in terms of content in the commercial/technical subjects as well as strengthening the applicability of university teaching is achieved by the collaborative development of complex teaching-learning arrangements (German abbreviation: KLLA) for specialist scientific studying.

Strengthening connections to the professional working world as well as to school practice (dual practice relation), especially in the person-related professional specializations, is at the heart of subproject 4. For this purpose, students are integrated into the vocational/scientific research to identify vocational core tasks as well as the curricular processing of these according to the principle of explorative learning as part of a concept of university didactics.

This work goes hand in hand with subproject 5, which, as a contribution to developing a sustainable quality management system, evaluates the course structures of selected vocational subject areas with regard to interlocking of content and relevance to the world of work. It also examines the development of associated profession-related convictions and competencies during the course of study. On this basis, measures to optimize organization and curricular content of the degree programs are initiated.

Spanning the main areas, the project pursues a strategy to strengthen cross-phase networking with the goal of integrative teacher education for vocational schools. For this purpose, structures and formats are developed in subproject 6, in which the approaches and results developed in the course of the project are discussed with other actors in teacher education, both from other universities and from the 2nd and 3rd phases, and with representatives of school practice. These approaches and results are also made usable for the cooperative further development of a coherent teacher education.

Management Contact
Prof. Manuela Niethammer
Board of Directors, Center for Teacher Education and Educational Research (German abbreviation: ZLSB)
Chair of Construction, Wood and Paint Technology and Interior Design/Vocational Didactics

Project Coordination Contact
Center for Teacher Education and Educational Research (German abbreviation: ZLSB):

Dr. Holger Sachse

Jacob Romankiewicz