Profile
The Teaching and Research Area Didactics of School and Vocational Education with a Focus in the Technical Field was founded in 2004 and renamed General Didactics with a Focus on Technology and Media Education in 2011, thus re-orienting itself. This new orientation led to a strengthening of the general didactic orientation towards all types of schools and extracurricular learning processes and expanded the content area through the integration of media education. The inclusion of technology education has remained a crucial factor. Professor Sven Kommer has been chairman since January 2013.
Teaching
In our teaching activities we work with didactic models and different methods of facilitating knowledge. School lessons are at the focus of this work. We place particular focus on the possibilities that result from the use of digital media.
The employees in this teaching field support students not only with mastering written homework and papers but also with their final theses. There is a broad spectrum of topics among the supervised Staatsexamen, Bachelor, and Master's theses ranging from subject-didactic questions to media-pedagogical topics.
Research
The teaching are conducts both application-oriented and fundamental theoretical research in the field of technology and media education. Questions about ways of working with media in formal and informal education processes are at the focus. The teaching area's research interests currently focus primarily on:
- Learning through Shaping: Concepts for Media Education and Using Media in School
- Media Habits of Instructors
- Promotion of Reading Strategies
- Use of Digital Media to Facilitate Knowledge
- Use of Tablet PCs in School Lessons
Current Research Projects
- Digitale außerschulische lern- und bildungsbezogene Handlungspraxen von Jugendlichen (DAB-J)
Activities
The teaching and research area has a network spanning across RWTH and other universities within Germany and Austria. The area contributes to interdisciplinary collaborations with other faculties involved in teacher training.
Aside from research and teaching in the areas mentioned above, the teaching and research area is also charged with the organization of the project Unihits für Kids. Within this project experience days are organized for school students in grades 5 through 9, during which the engineering and natural sciences in various university institutions come alive in a playful manner.