The Basic Didactics of the Vocational Specialization Mechanical Engineering Technology

 

Content

Contents of the seminar "The basic didactics of the vocational specialization mechanical engineering technology" are as follows:

• Developing criteria to describe didactic concepts.
• Presenting concepts and theories of general didactics. These include educational theory didactics, critical-constructive didactics, learning and teaching theoretical didactics, and holistic-post-traditional didactics such as task-oriented didactics or constructivist didactics.
• Acquainting students with concepts and theories of general technology didactics, e.g. reflecting systems according to Günther Ropohl, among others discussing Prof. Feldhusen’s lecture "Construction technology: Classification of technical systems according to their main flows (matter, energy, signal).”
• Presenting concepts and theories for didactics of industrial-technical vocational specialization, e.g. subject-oriented-structured concepts such as the structure-theoretical technology approach and action-, work-, situation-oriented approaches such as the design-oriented approach in vocational education.
• Presenting strategies for lesson planning in the industrial-technical vocational specialization of mechanical engineering technology.
• Presenting methodologies for teaching in the vocational specialization of mechanical engineering technology (design levels of methodology: overall conception, articulation, action form, social form, media, teaching grip, judgment form, etc.).

Objective

The goal of the seminar "Didactic basics of the vocational specialization mechanical engineering technology" is to establish and promote the systematic technical-didactic approach of the students. This approach is substantiated for different contexts of vocational education, especially for different educational programs of the vocational college.

In the seminar, students learn to …

• reflect on didactic positions and structuring approaches. This includes concepts and theories of general didactics, general didactics of technology and didactics of the industrial-technical vocational specialization of mechanical engineering technology.
• analyze subject-specific content of mechanical engineering technology with regard to current discussions of goals and content in vocational education.
• describe curricular approaches to vocational education.
• distinguish strategies of lesson planning in educational programs of vocational specialization of mechanical engineering technology.
• describe class methodologies in the vocational specialization of mechanical engineering technology.

Teaching and Learning Method

The aim of the seminar is to get to know the current challenges of a teacher at a vocational college, to analyze these challenges against the background of theories in order to be able to work out possible solutions for the future profession.
To this end, the students are provided with digital teaching materials on the one hand on the theoretical references and on the other hand on concrete challenges to be dealt with at the vocational college prior to the courses. The goal of the presence sessions is to work on practical challenges with the help of theoretical approaches in critical discourse in the learning group in order to promote an active knowledge construction of the students.

The examination itself takes the form of a presentation based on a written paper and is an integral part of the seminar. Here, the students have the opportunity to deal with a problem in depth and to engage in critical and constructive discourse with their fellow students.