Chair of Educational Science / Pedagogy II

Profile

This chair is concerned with Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Learning in Organisations. In other words, professional development in formal learning settings, as well as informal learning and behaviour at work. (read more)

News

SOSNetLab – A Smart Toolkit for Knowledge Brokers to Visualize Social Opportunity Spaces

From 01.02.2022 - 31.01.2025, the Chair of Education II is part of an international project entitled "SOSNetLab - A Smart Toolkit for Knowledge Brokers to Visualize Social Opportunity Spaces". The project, which will run for three years, is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The central objective of the SOSNetLab project is to build an innovative Learning Recommender that will enable a better understanding of social network structures, the distribution, and dissemination of information and experiences, and thus contribute to making knowledge resources better and more appropriately available to local communities.

The specific objectives of this project are rooted in a participatory design and will develop, test, and evaluate both off- and online tools. To this end, a mixed-methods approach will be adopted, including design sprints, social network analysis, natural language processing, machine learning, and qualitative interviews. In addition, a series of training activities and workshops will be designed and implemented for the use of the Learning Recommender.

Partners: University of California, San Diego, USA; Utah State University, USA; Transcend, USA; High Tech High, USA; YouCubed (Stanford University), USA; Multilingual Learner Leadership and Policy Institute, USA; American Museum of Natural History, USA; NordThird, USA; SkyRocket Software, USA; Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Spanien

In case of interest or general questions, please contact Dr. Martin Rehm.

EU-Project “Bequal.app” – Benchmarking for Quality Assurance in Apprenticeships and Work Based Learning (granted for 2 years)

The central idea of the Bequal.app project is to develop, test and mainstream two online benchmarking tools for quality assurance in apprenticeships and work-based learning, one addressing VET providers and one addressing companies providing apprenticeships.

The specific objectives of this project are the development of quality assurance frameworks, two self-assessment questionnaires and two online benchmarking tools for quality assurance in apprenticeships and work-based learning. In addition, the Bequal.app badge will be established for VET providers and companies providing apprenticeships and work-based learning and demonstrate good practices.   

Kaunas Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Crafts (KCCIC), Lithuania; IDEC, Greece; Institute of the Republic of Slovenia for Vocational Education and Training (CPI), Slovenia; Agency for Vocational Education and Training and Adult Education (ASOO), Croatia; Croatian Chamber of Trades and Crafts (HOK), Croatia; Finance & Banking, Organisational & HR development Association (Effebi), Italy; European Association of Institutes for Vocational Training (EVBB), Germany.

Benchmarking for Quality Assurance in Apprenticeships and Work Based Learning

2nd Newsletter

Dear colleagues,

It is a pleasure for me to inform you with this newsletter about the first output of the “BEQUAL.app” project. Our goals were the development of a framework of quality indicators for quality assurance in work-based learning and benchmarking-questionnaires for educational institutions and companies providing work-based learning.

In a first step, we conducted a literature search with the help of all project partners, which led to a collection of various documents and Erasmus+ projects on quality and quality assurance in work-based learning. Based on the analysis of the collected information, quality indicators for quality assurance in work-based learning were derived. Afterwards, these quality indicators were validated with the support of relevant stakeholders from each partner country. Further elaboration involving all project partners then led to a final framework of quality indicators for both educational institutions and companies. This framework served as a basis, on which two benchmarking-questionnaires were developed, in a second step.

The benchmarking-questionnaires, one for educational institutions and one for companies, were developed in close collaboration with all project partners. We are proud that after the third partner meeting in Zagreb the preliminary version of the questionnaires was completed. We completed the testing by the end of October. The final English version of the benchmarking-questionnaires is now available for translation and technical implementation.

Many thanks to all our stakeholders for their support in this important step of the project!

You can find further information on the project homepage: www.bequalapp.eu

Sincerely,

Verena Watzek

Part of a BMBF-project (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung/ Federal Ministry of Education and Research) granted for 3,5 years

DFG-project (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/ German Scientific Foundation) granted for 2,5 years