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This book considers a radical change to engineering education. It argues for a reexamination of the traditional way in which engineering students are educated in disciplinary silos and how, instead, we might re-imagine their professional education to more appropriately prepare students to design innovative solutions to increasingly complex global challenges. It poses the question: “How can engineers think outside the engineers'box?'. A box that has over generations rendered engineers to be unquestioning servants of the socio-political systems in which they function. The book introduces a unique framework and language for engineering education which considers both the problems of the past and present, and the potential solutions offered for the future. By reaching out beyond the bounds of traditional knowledge and thought collectives, this book will also offer a pathway for other professional education programs to explore.

This book focusses on the role of craft as a continuing cultural practice and the revival of disappearing skills in contemporary society. It includes twenty-five essays by highly regarded artisans, academics, technologists, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, curators, and researchers from many countries representing a wide range of global craft traditions and innovations. The authors explain their professional practices and creative pathways with knowledge, experience, and passion. They offer insightful analyses of their traditions within their culture and in the marketplace, alongside the evolution of technology as it adapts to support experimentation and business strategies. They write about teaching and research informing their practice; and they explain the importance of their tools and materials in function and form of the objects they make. The essays reveal a poignant expression of their successes, disappointments, and opportunities. This book offers case studiesof how artisans have harnessed the traditions of the past alongside the latest design technologies. The authors reveal how global craft is not only a vehicle for self-expression and creativity, but also for being deeply relevant to the world of work, community and environmental sustainability. The book makes the vital link between skills, knowledge, education, and employment, and fills a much-needed niche in Technical, Vocational Education and Training TVET.

The increasing use of technology in our lives requires not only the qualification of young professionals through vocational training in order to maintain innovation and technical and societal progress, but also a technical education “for everyone”, so as to cope with these environments and to become a society with technology literacy. A lack of technology activities may not only result in a “technology illiteracy”, thus making a responsible participation in social life more difficult, but also has an impact on identity development. Against this background, technology education is getting important and has an impact on various aspects of the personality, e.g. skills, knowledge and interest in technology, which initiate lifelong learning.With the combination of articles, the editors of Technology Education Vol. III want to give an insight into international approaches of technology education and its impact. Nine authors, respectively teams of authors from various countries present their educational setting and the impact it has for the personality development in technology.

This book examines how industry-desired employability skills—or “soft skills”—are taught and learned in high school career and technical education (CTE) engineering and engineering technology programs. Identifying, recruiting, and keeping workers with strong personal and interpersonal skills is a constant challenge for STEM employers who need to hire young workers to replace an aging technical workforce. To answer the call, teachers interviewed explained that they maintain regimented daily classroom routines that include individual and small group hands-on activities and projects. In turn, their students explain learning personal responsibility, work ethic, teamwork, leadership, conflict management, and social skills in the classroom. Narratives from the workforce and classroom interweave to put employability skills frameworks into action.

This book presents a mobile technology capacity building framework that offers academics, students, and practitioners involved in workplace education a deeper understanding of, and practical guidance on, how mobile technology can enhance professional learning. Approaching professional and workplace learning as a hybrid space in which work, learning and technology meet, the book discusses the value of mobile technology in shaping professional education, particularly during student placements.The framework focuses on staying professional and safe, considering issues of time and place, planning learning activities, initiating dialogue, networking, creating learning opportunities on-the-go, and deepening reflection. It is designed to assist students and their educators to use mobile technology knowledgeably and responsibly, and to help bridge the gap between university learning and workplace practice.This book also contributes to a better understanding of the interconnectedness between learning, practice and technology. It demonstrates how to enhance learning and working with mobile technology by drawing on two perspectives: the ‘professional-plus'and the ‘deliberate professional'.

Die Studie untersucht, inwiefern deutsche Produktionsunternehmen in China, Indien und Mexiko versuchen, das deutsche duale Ausbildungsmodell zu übertragen oder in ihrer Qualifizierungspraxis eher den lokalen Kontext adaptieren. Dabei wird der Fokus auf Einflussgrößen gerichtet, die aus der Unternehmensperspektive auf die mögliche Übertragung einwirken. Die Befunde zeigen einen erheblichen Einfluss der nationalen Rahmung in den Untersuchungsregionen. Dennoch lassen sich in allen drei Ländern auch duale Ansätze identifizieren, die aus der Gestaltungskraft der Unternehmen hervorgehen und dabei den lokalen Kontext überwinden.

This handbook brings together and promotes research on the area of vocational education and training (VET). It analyzes current and future economic and labor market trends and relates these to likely implications for vocational education and training. It questions how VET engages with the growing power of human development approaches and with the sustainable development agenda. Equity and inclusion are discussed in a range of ways by the authors and the consideration of the construction of these terms is an important element of the handbook. It further addresses both the overall notion of system reform, at different scales, and what is known about particular technologies of systems reform across a variety of settings. Vocational learning and VET teacher/trainer education are discussed from a comparative perspective. National and comparative experiences are also shared on questions of equity and efficiency in funding in terms of those that fund and are funded, and for a range of funding methodologies. As well as reviewing existing gaps, this handbook is looking forward in identifying promising new directions in research and environment.Areas covered:The Changing World of Work | Editors: Margarita Pavlova and Salim AkoojeeSkills for Sustainable Human Development | Editor: Lesley PowellPlanning and Reforming Skills Systems | Editor: Robert PalmerPrivate Training Markets | Editors: Michael Gessler, Larissa Freund and Susanne PetersVocational Learning | Editors: Karen Evans and Natasha KershCompetence and Excellence | Editor: Kirby BarrickMeasuring Learning and Instructional Performance | Editor: Esther WintherSupporting Learners | Editor: Joy PapierVET Teacher/Trainer Education | Editor: Volker Wedekind

This book brings together a broad range of approaches and methodologies relevant to international comparative vocational education and training (VET). Revealing how youth in transition is affected by economic crises, it provides essential insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the various systems and prospects of VET in contexts ranging from North America to Europe, (e.g. Spain, Germany or the UK) to Asia (such as China, Thailand and India). Though each country examined in this volume is affected by the economic crisis in a different way, the effects are especially apparent for the young generation. In many countries the youth unemployment rate is still very high and the job perspectives for young people are often limited at best. The contributions in this volume demonstrate that VET alone cannot solve these problems, but can be used to support a smooth transition from school to work. If the quality of VET is high and the status and job expectations are good, VET can help to fill the skills gap, especially at the intermediate skill level. Furthermore, VET can also offer a realistic alternative to the university track for young people in many countries.

This book provides an introduction to the philosophy of technology. It offers a survey of the current state-of-affairs in the philosophy of technology, and discusses its relevance for teaching about technology.Teaching about technology, at all levels of education, can only be done properly when those who teach have a clear idea about what it is that they teach. In other words: they should be able to give an appropriate answer to the question: what is technology? The question of the nature of technology is explored in the philosophy of technology, making this a highly relevant discipline for those who teach about technology. Literature in this field, however, is not always easy to access for non-philosophers. By providing an introduction to the philosophy of technology, this book makes the discipline more easily accessible. The book can be used in introductory courses on the philosophy of technology in teacher education programs, engineering education programs, and by individual educators who are interested in the intriguing phenomenon of technology that is so important in our contemporary society.

Drawing on decades of industrial experience, this insightful and practical guide uses case studies and an interdisciplinary perspective to explain the fundamentals of simulation training to improve performance of high-risk professional activities. It seeks to identify those conditions under which simulation training has been shown to improve professional practice while employing extensive real examples. Simulation Training: Fundamentals and Application helps readers to develop their own synthesis of the simulation learning method and to use such training to enhance their skills and performance. Case studies demonstrate five specific theatres of professional practice - the nuclear-power industry, aeronautics, surgery, anesthesia and metallurgy – and then detailed analysis highlights the common factors and key results. The author's background as a Human Factors Consultant, Physicist and Physiologist has enriched studies of humans in work situations, work organization and management and he has also been involved in pedagogical conception of experimental training on simulators based on his experience as a safety expert on nuclear power plant. The book is useful to practitioners, researchers and students, both in industry and in university. It is clearly cross disciplinary as it presents and discusses applications in engineering, professional practice (airline pilots) and medicine.

Technisch-berufliches Lernen zielt auf die Entwicklung von Kompetenzen, also von Dispositionen, welche den Lernenden zu einem eigenständigen beruflichen Handeln in technischen Kontexten befähigen. Welches sind diese Kompetenzen im Einzelnen? Wie können sie geklärt, differenziert, beschrieben, vermittelt und schließlich überprüft werden? Und in welchen technischen Kontexten werden von wem welche Kompetenzen benötigt? Diesen Fragen wendet sich Ralf Tenberg mit seiner Technikdidaktik schwerpunktmäßig zu. Er hat dabei insbesondere die Ausbildung von Facharbeitern und Handwerkern im Blick, hält jedoch auch eine Reihe von Konzepten und Aussagen für den tertiären Bereich bereit. Zunächst klärt er technikdidaktische Basisaspekte und -begriffe, arbeitet anschließend die zentralen Theorien über berufliche Kompetenzen und deren Entwicklung auf und erläutert schließlich die Kompetenzvermittlung entlang eines didaktischen Prozessmodells genauer.

Empowerment is the overarching idea used in this book. The term has a variety of meanings in different sociocultural and political contexts, including “self-strength, control, self-power, self-reliance, own choice, life of dignity in accordance with one's values, capable of fighting for one's rights, independence, own decision making, being free, awakening, and capability” (The World Bank, 2002, p. 10). However, the World Bank report observed that most definitions focus on issues of “gaining power and control over decisions and resources that determine the quality of one's life” (p. 10). This interpretation of empowerment provides a useful starting point for the development of the series of interconnected arguments explored here. Establishment of the basis for understanding, identifying and developing strategies through education necessary for individuals to be able to make choices that inf- ence the quality of their lives is the main aim of this book. There are a number of assumptions and boundaries that frame this analysis. First, the book focuses on “agents”; however, empowerment is often conceptualised in terms of relationships between agency and structure (e. g., Alsop, Bertelsen, & H- land, 2006). Agency could be defined as “an actor's or group's ability to make purposeful choices – that is, the actor is able to envisage and purposively choose options” (p. 11).

Teaching about technology, at all levels of education, can only be done properly when those who teach have a clear idea about what it is that they teach. In other words: they should be able to give a decent answer to the question: what is technology? In the philosophy of technology that question is explored. Therefore the philosophy of technology is a discipline with a high relevance for those who teach about technology. Literature in this field, though, is not always easy to access for non-philosophers. This book provides an introduction to the philosophy of technology for such people. It offers a survey of the current state-of-affairs in the philosophy of technology, and also discusses the relevance of that for teaching about technology. The book can be used in introductory courses on the philosophy of technology in teacher education programs, engineering education programs, and by individual educators that are interested in the intriguing phenomenon of technology that is so important in our contemporary society.