Profile of VET organisation

Name of organization: Max-Hachenburg-Schule Mannheim

Address: Tattersallstr. 28 - 30, 68165 Mannheim

Country: Germany

URL: http://www.mannheimer-schulen.de/mhs/

 

Type of VET institute:

No of staff:

No of trainees:

Quality Management Dimension

E-learning platform with tutorial.

Baseline / problem

In the face of quality of class and the connected learning- and teaching-processes – as a reaction to the needs for qualification on the employment market – the question of key competences and the therefore necessary approach of activity-based learning become more and more important. Methodological competence, media competence, and personal skills are, among others, some of the central key competences of the electronic shaped working environment and knowledge-based society; life-long learning becomes a necessary need for career advancement; learning on the job like by E-learning with electronic working materials at the working place, as well as from the domestic working environment becomes a central part of further training.

Furthermore a differentiation of learning places is taking place.

Framework

To reach these goals, the vocational school decided to take part in the SOLO-project. In this program learners and tutors at the Max-Hachenburg-school form an unit, which helps to solve problems and find answers to content and practical issues. The tutors support the learners by professional advice and method knowledge, as well as media competence.

These knowledge and competences are delivered in MHS-courses of several days duration. As gratification the tutors receive a certificate of the training and the activity as a tutor.

Good practice: (Measures, instruments, criteria, indicators)

Measures:

Learning in self-organized, self-directed learning communities leads to a new, challenging the modern professional needs, learning concept, which follows these quality criteria of “good schooling”:

• Learning goals are important and challenging
• Knowledge-structures are build up
• The learning-environment is rich in content
• Learning is reasonable and meaningful
• Analytical, critical, and creative thinking and working is enhanced
• Self-directed learning is enhanced
• Metacognitions are developed
• (Electronic) media are focused on the learning process and use in it
• Positively emotional controlling of the learning process
• Improvement of the quality of the pupil-teacher-relationship

Instruments/methods:

The vocational school of Mannheim understands the ides of an E-learning environment not only as isolated learning on the pc, but as learning like in a course-system. That means that the learning process is not closed and can reach and systematically define new training steps in the learning progress.

The content is not totally new to the pupils, because it is based on and should complete the topics of the classroom teaching.

Consequently E-learning attends the apprenticeship, not only at school, but also at home, and wherever they are able to use the personal learning environment.

The technique realization of the net-based learning takes place in the framework of the E-learning-project using a individually structured homepage, coordinated by teachers of the Max-Hachenburg-school, and a learning platform. The learning platform “Moodle” is a flexible learning environment, based on a constructivist learning-concept. It supports the active work of the learner with his learning matter, in individual work or as a group work. Additionally the platform offers the possibility for user to communicate with each other, especially also with the tutors.

Next to the net-based solution subject-specific learning software is available, like SMILE for mathematics, or WORK with English for language classes.

Evaluation:

The progress and efficiency of the platform and the tutors´ assistance have to pass an evaluation each year. The feedback gives concrete improvement suggestions and shows, which measures have been reached.

Problems and constraints encountered and solutions found:

Because tutors have to show very good and stable performance to take part in workshops and spend their time with the assistance of other pupils, it is not easy to find tutors in the lower classes. The continuity cannot be guaranteed for the new vocational school students. Unfortunately the time to find tutors, teach them, and supervise them is very short, normally about three years of apprenticeship. That leads to the problem that tutors often come from the graduating classes, so that their training takes a relatively long time in comparison with the time, they can assist others as tutors.

A solution could be that the candidates for tutorials get follow-up contracts by their training company before their exams start in the middle of the final year. That takes some pressure from the potential tutors, and this coordination is also a bridge for future engagement possibilities of tutors for their vocational schools after graduating.

Future perspectives:

The experience with this program shows, that it is really difficult to let the learners without any guidance or assistance with their learning environment, and tutors alone cannot fulfill all tasks. It is therefore necessary to have a additional teacher of the schools´ staff, who supervises the pupils, optimal the teacher of the specific subject, for which the e-learning platform is used.

Beside this the tutorial and the offered activities led to a general better understanding of the class contents.