This poster presentation is a part of the project “professional teachers activities to promote subject-based learning under changing social conditions, (ProfaLe)” at the University of Hamburg. It is funded as part of the joint teacher education quality campaign.

This project intends to improve the cooperation between the vocational subjects metals technology, electric technology, building technology, wood technology and media technology and their related subject-specific didactics. The project follows a research-based approach in order to achieve the goal of enhancing the cooperation. The theoretical framework is oriented at the model of professional teacher competence by Baumert & Kunter (2006, 482) and Shulman (1986). With regards to the goals of vocational teacher education it is particularly important to improve the connection between content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) within the Bachelor degree.

In Hamburg, the vocational teacher training takes place at two different universities. The vocational subjects are located at the Technical University of Hamburg. Whereas the subject-specific didactic and the general pedagogy as well as the second subject are located at the University of Hamburg. Depending on the vocational subject, the integration of teacher training content has varied. Furthermore, the networking between subject and subject-specific didactic training has been limited until now. This can be considered as problematic, because for a professional teacher training this networking is essential.

Therefore, the activities in the field of vocational education can be represented by three central goals:

• Stronger networking of vocational subject and subject-specific didactic training content and structures (cognitive de-segmentation).
• Consolidation of content-based and methodological cooperation between experts in subject-specific didactics and in the subject itself (organizational de-segmentation).
• Development and implementation of innovative course concepts in which, for example, scientific content is presented under the aspects of acquisition and imparting in vocational teaching and learning processes (curricular de-segmentation).

The newly developed courses should permanently be implemented in teacher training courses of the University of Hamburg. Furthermore, the project results should stimulate development processes at other universities and contribute to the knowledge in teacher training research.

At the beginning of the project the actual state of the situation in Hamburg was investigated. Different surveys and analyses were applied to describe the situation.

All new seminar concepts that were given as part of the intervention were designed to link (vocational) subject competences and subject-specific didactic competences. An innovative seminar concept, in which students of the Technical University of Hamburg and the University of Hamburg work and learn together, focuses on the preparation and analysis of barrier-free explanatory videos on energy transition topics. The aim of this course is to promote the students media and explanatory competence and also to provide information on the design of barrier-free videos, because the topic of inclusion becomes more and more important in Vocational education and training (VET) (Bach et al. 2016).   

Another innovative seminar concept is dedicated to the topic "Problems of understanding / cognition in the classroom" (Bialeck 2017). Such situations are always a particular challenge for teachers, because on the one hand, they require a high level of specialist knowledge and on the other hand, knowledge about the right course of action in the specific teaching situation is essential as well.

Both topics are important, because the knowledge about explanation possibilities and the knowledge about students conceptions or students misconceptions are understood as part of the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of teachers. Furthermore, the professional handling of students misconceptions is the subject of current teaching-learning research (Wuttke & Seifried 2017) and should therefore, also be a central topic for university teacher training.

For the implementation of the sketched project a multi-step methodical approach based on Design-Based-Research (Anderson & Shattuck 2012) was chosen. At the beginning of the project the various curricula of the partial study courses were analyzed in order to identify interfaces in the module descriptions. The aim was to develop proposals for better networking in study programs. In a further step a student survey (N = 63) (quantitative) was implemented using an online questionnaire at the end of their undergraduate studies. Personal attitudes and opinions on the study of vocational subjects and subject specific didactics as well as the inter-university cooperation opportunities were assessed. Also a university teacher survey (N=9) (qualitative) was implemented to get detailed information about supporting or limiting factors of a cooperation between the two universities and the different vocational disciplines. During the second survey the results of the student survey were presented. After evaluating the surveys and results, appropriate interventions were developed: • Systematic coordination of the curricula of the University of Hamburg and Technical University of Hamburg (mutual participation in development of subject-specific provisions). • Joint workshops with experts in the subjects and experts in subject didactics with the goal of improving cooperation. • Development of seminar concepts that implement a special focus on the networking of subject science and subject-specific didactics (see seminar concepts above). The next steps are the design and implementation of a qualitative and quantitative evaluation based on re-design of the course formats. In the end, with positive evaluation results, activities are carried out to transfer and continue the developed measures.

The surveys were evaluated and at present, we implement the suitable interventions. One result of the student survey was that the students consider the content-related coordination between the vocational subject and didactics as somewhat dissatisfied (measured with a 6-point Likert scale). The students expected a stronger orientation on learning professional teacher skills from the first day of their studies. “Subject didactics should play a role from the first semester onwards and accompany the study completely, so that one can always and again, also for oneself, determine how I can apply what I have learned.” (Statement of a student). Unfortunately, most of the technical vocational subjects have the main focus on engineer specific content. Therefore for example we are working on new teaching related course concepts in the field of metals technology. From the perspective of the students, they only have very little possibilities to practice their teaching skills during their Bachelor´s studies. In the future, we will further intensify the cooperation with the university teachers and lecturers in order to improve the study situation.

Anderson, T. & Shattuck, J. (2012). Design-Based Research: A Decade of Progress in Education Research? Educational Researcher, Vol. 41, No. 1, 16–25. Bach, A.; Schmidt, C.; Schaub, C. (2016): „Professionalisierung für eine inklusive gewerblich-technische Berufsausbildung“. In: bwp@ Berufs- und Wirtschaftspädagogik - online. (30), S. 1–25. Baumert, J. & Kunter, M. (2006). Stichwort: Professionelle Kompetenz von Lehrkräften. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, 9 (4), 469-520. Bialeck, T. (2017). Aus Fehlern wird man klug – ein Beitrag zur Implementierung einer konstruktiven Fehlerkultur in der gewerblich-technischen Lehrerbildung. In Baabe-Meijer, S., Kuhlmeier, W. & Meyser, J (Hrsg.), Trends beruflicher Arbeit - Digitalisierung, Nachhaltigkeit, Heterogenität. Ergebnisse der Fachtagung Bau, Holz Farbe und Gestaltung 2017. Norderstedt: bod. In Druck. Shulman, L. S. (1986): Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. In: Educational Researcher, Vol. 15, No. 2, 4-14. Wuttke, E. & Seifried, J. (Eds.) (2017): Professional Error Competence of Preservice Teachers. Evaluation and Support. Springer Briefs in Education. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG. http://www.springer.com/de/book/9783319526478