Session Information
02 SES 09 A, Higher and Adult Education I: Transitions and Further Education
Paper Session
Contribution
Foremen are the ‘quality improvement managers’ for work and business processes on the building site. The foreman’s tasks consist of assuring quality of work and organisation on the building site. They can be grouped into three areas:
- building technology: e.g. building machinery, materials, logistic, pre-fabrication, new and innovative approaches
- building site project management: e.g. to ensure quality of work- and business process (preparation, realisation and assessments), documentation etc.
- employee management: adequate personal planning and team management processes (including responsibility for apprenticeship): e.g. conflict management, team development
Therefore he acts at the ‘living communication interface’ between employees, apprentices, suppliers, planners, corporate headquarters, competent authorities etc.
Further vocational education and training in Germany’s construction sector leading to general foreman is structured in three levels. In courses carried out at education providers normally belonging to the building industry, one first can attain the level of foreman (‘Vorarbeiter’), afterwards the ‘Werkpolier’ and ‘geprüfter Polier’ (two different levels of general foreman). The last one is the adequate of a master craftsman in industry (‘Meister’). In order to cope with technological change and first of all to relate courses and exams closer to the world of work and the actual general foreman’s occupational profile (i.e. day-to-day management of construction sites), in 2012, in Germany the examination of further vocational education and training courses leading to the different grades of general foreman in construction was reformed towards action-oriented examinations (Meyser 2013; Niethammer/Schmidt/Schweder 2013). Examination now focuses on a practical project (usually 3 weeks) that is carried out at the foreman’s company in order to reflect on actual work. The examination mainly consists in an expert talk on this project as well as on typical foremen’s work tasks and problems.
During the courses, the learners usually are released from work and the companies pay for the courses as well as the skilled workers’ wages during course time. The actual way of carrying out the courses leading to the different grades of foreman is dominated by a number of various external lecturers as sideline activities (often engineers, technicians, architects, experts of suppliers, experts of building authorities and private personnel developer and consultants) that are providing specialised knowledge about their respective fields. A seven weeks course easily may be carried out by more than a dozen or more different lecturers. Furthermore, at the first two levels there are a number of specialisations (e.g. earthwork, sewage conduit construction, construction site safety), that only refer to sub-groups of learners according to their individual fields of work. The lecturers come from the whole of Germany and are specialists in their respective fields. But this setting makes it difficult, though, to relate the lessons' contents to one another and to enable the learners to grasp the whole picture of a foreman's work - the necessary work-process knowledge (Boreham/Fischer 2009; Fischer/Boreham/Nyan 2004).
The challenge in the project we undertook was to introduce action-oriented forms of learning and teaching into this setting. Fortunately, lecturers' as well as learners' motivation for such an endeavour was quite high. Still, the way courses and examinations are organised overall meant lengthy labour in order to at least partly achieve the aim of stronger relating course contents to the foreman's occupational reality.
Method
Two kinds of qualitative research approaches were mostly used for this case study. First, we conducted 20 interviews with those lecturers most involved in the courses as well as management staff. These interviews were analysed using MaxQDA in order to group the interviews’ contents around the most pressing issues. Furthermore, in the tradition of accompanying research, we took part in meetings of a group of lecturers trying to stronger relate the different contents to each other. Here, regular group discussions were carried out. The mixed-methods approach of this project consisted of various online surveys for learners and teachers/trainers as well as some interviews with selected key person in the field. Furthermore, the researchers organised and took part in monthly meetings of a group of lecturers that were developing the tasks that should structure the new course system (Orlikowski/Scott 2008). The main points emerging through these processes were: Frame conditions: Courses having to be carried out in winter, in as a short time as possible Participants' motivation: This is quite high for all the learners Lecturers: Having very good factual knowledge of their field of specialisation, but mostly are not foremen themselves. instead, engineers predominate Exams: Have been modified in order to be more in line with the actual foreman's job profile. But often they are centralised and not carried out by the lecturers. Teaching and learning processes: lack of well organised teaching materials; restrictions on action learning because of time constraints; internal evaluation is carried out in a summative way
Expected Outcomes
The general foreman's role in the building industry has considerably changed in the last years. In Germany, examination procedures have been changed in order to cope with the foremen's new role. Still, there are severe restrictions put on the way learning is organised at VET and further education providers. Most severe here are the restrictions put on learning via the organisation of courses - the companies' interest of having only a short, intensive course phase in the winter break is pressurising the instruction towards offering 'hard facts' in order to pass exams. As the learners as well as the lecturers showed considerable motivation, some of the internal restrictions (lots of different lecturers in one course) could be overcome. Still, to develop and establish sound forms of teacher collaboration as well as a stronger orientation towards action-oriented learning only partly succeeded. As the general foreman's role has rapidly changed in the last years not only in Europe, the presentation will show in depth the various constraints for such a form a vocational further education as well as the possibilities to overcome these restrictions.
References
Boreham, N. & M. Fischer (2009): “The mutual shaping of work, vocational competence and work-process knowledge” in: Maclean, R. und D.N. Wilson (Hg.) International Handbook of Education for the Changing World of Work, S. 1593-1609, Dordrecht: Springer. Deitmer, L. & Heinemann, L. (2015): Arbeitsplatzbezogenes Lernen mit Hilfe mobiler Geräte und digitaler Medien, in: berufsbildung 1/2015, eusl, Paderborn. Deitmer, L., Heinemann, L., Müller, W.(2016) Building Information Modelling (BIM) and its implications on professional skills of construction workers. In: Proceedings of the ECER VETNET Conference 2016: Papers presented for the VETNET programme of ECER 2016 at Dublin Deitmer, Ludger; Heinemann, Lars (2017) New teaching methods and learning methods in further VET for general foremen in the German Construction sector. In: Kaiser, F., Krugmann, S. (Eds.): Social Dimension and Participation in Vocational Education and Training, Proceedings of the 2ndconference “Crossing Boundaries in VET” Fischer, M., Boreham, N. & Nyhan, B. (Eds.) 2004. European perspectives on learning at work: the acquisition of work process knowledge, Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications for the European Communities. Meyser, Johannes 2013: Die Neuordnung des Fortbildungsberufs "Geprüfter Polier" und die Feststellung beruflicher Handlungskompetenz. In: Becker, Mathias; Grimm, Axel; Petersen, A. Willi; Schlausch, Reiner (Hrsg.): Kompetenzorientierung und Strukturen gewerblich-technischer Berufsbildung. Berufsbiografien, Fachkräftemangel, Lehrerbildung. Berlin: LiT, S. 54 – 74. Niethammer, M., Schmidt, D., Schweder, M. (2013): Ausbilderschulungen in der Aufstiegsfortbildung (Vorarbeiter/Werkpolier/Geprüfter Polier). In: bwp@Spezial 6 – Hochschultage Berufliche Bildung 2013, Fachtagung 03, S. 1-16. Orlikowski, Wanda J. and Scott, Susan V. (2008) Sociomateriality: challenging the separation of technology, work and organization. Academy of Management Annals, 2 (1). pp. 433-474. ISSN 1941-6520 Schoen, D. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books, 1983.
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