The beginnings of project lessons reach as far back as to the 18th century. Coming from the French building academies via progressive education in the United States and progressive education on the European continent as far as to action- and learning field-orientated teaching, the development and spread of project lessons can be reconstructed. Empirically founded project didactics, which understands itself to be a theory of learning by projects under school conditions and is based on the empirical investigation of prerequisites, effects, and limitations of this way of teaching, have increasingly been demanded since the 1990s, appropriate studies, however, have for the time being been presented only on single aspects. A variety of hopes is raised by the project method, according to which project lessons are particularly suitable for making higher-value teaching goals possible, such as independence, self-responsibilty, self-organization, social competence, and problem-solving skills. These teaching goals, however, are also considered central features of project lessons. Furthermore, the particular significance of project lessons is due to the variety of learning paradigms which so to speak melt “into each other” in the process: learning is socially and co-operatively embedded, the (complex) problems are situatively orientated towards professional tasks, and discovering as well as self-controlled learning is encouraged. In how far these assumptions are correct has not yet been sufficiently examined. In the context of “new ways of learning” in professional training, among which there also count project lessons, increased co-operation of teachers is demanded. While with project lessons learning is in the fore, with project management it is securing co-operation towards performance and achieving goals. Both methods are based on the idea of context control. Their synthesis is already being tried out at vocational schools. Research questions: 1. Which kinds of project lessons are practiced at vocational schools? In how far do project lessons make self-organised learning possible? 2. What are the possible effects of project lessons in respect of students (self-organization, motivation, atmosphere in the class) and teachers (co-operation)? 3. Which conditions affect effective project lessons (institutional conditions, students, teachers)? Which conditions limit the employment of this way of teaching? Presentation Following an overview at the research project (goals, workplan, examination methods), first results shall be presented. 1. Forms and distribution of project lessons at the examined vocational schools. 2. First recommendations in regard of the realization of project lessons. 3. Presentation of the approach at a competence model for project lessons.

The subject of the project is the empirical examination of prerequisites, effects, and limitations of project lessons in the field of vocational education, as well as the examination of meta-didactic possibilities of the method of project management as elements of empirically grounded project didactics. The examination is based on data which have been collected at selected vocational schools of the federal state of Bremen since the beginning of the school year 2005/06.

Goals and expected results of the research project: 1. To give information about the state of project lessons and project management in the field of vocational education, as well as to determine ways, effects, and limitations of this kind of teaching. 2. Development of a theoretically and empirically well-founded competence model for project lessons in the field of vocational education. 3. Working out recommendations on the basis of data which are supposed to contribute to improving the practice of teaching, followed by implementation and evaluation of recommendations. 4. Finally, data, recommendations, and developed school practice are the basis of the foundations of empirically grounded project didactics.