VET 4.0 as a didactical challenge

Abstract

The digital transformation has implications for vocational learning at schools and enterprises. These implications are recently discussed using the phrase “VET 4.0”. However, there are no empirical results on what the substance of these implications is and how vocational teachers deal with anticipated and realized changes. Therefore, based on an exploratory approach, interviews with 34 vocational teachers were conducted to better understand what their knowledge is about digitalization, which changes they recognize concerning their students’ future corporate business and work processes, how they relate to these changes when they specify intended learning outcomes, and how they describe the general impact of the digitalization trend on their schools at large. This article aims to survey and structure the teachers’ forms of coping with digitalization. The identified forms of coping with digitalization at the teachers’ work are rich in contrast and a distinction can be made between two basic types: The first group of teachers belongs to schools, in which they experience difficulties with the implementation of innovations and show a tendency to limit didactical work to a question of teaching methods. In coping with digitalized worlds of work, they demonstrate a rather narrow understanding of digitalisation and resist change. The second group of teachers belongs to schools with team-oriented structures for implementing innovations. In their didactical approach, they consider both, the level of lessons and the level of educational programmes. This group deals with digitalized worlds of work in a more sophisticated way, relates to occupational requirements and understands digitalization to be an opportunity to realize their educational ambitions in a changed context.(CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0)