Driver Instructor Education 2.0

On the level of practical driver instructor education a technology-based fostering of competence-focused learning with reflexive and situated elements (aim: instruction development) will take place. This technical-didactic innovation is not only supposed to advance the professional and instructional competence but also to provoke an organizational professionalization. The applied educational technologies can enhance the exchange of knowledge among colleagues or support transnational quality development through the assessment of good practices (aim: knowledge and quality management). At the moment, the project is supported scientifically by the University of the German Federal Armed Forces in Munich (aim: evaluation). The European Driving Schools Association is in charge of the project from a professional perspective and promotes its distribution (aim: dissemination).

Project

The demands for professional skills of the driver instructors have significantly expanded in recent years. Today, driver instructors do not only have to process scientific-technological knowledge according to the specific situation but also need to be able to be self-reflective and need to have coaching competence (e.g. HERMES project) as well as management skills (e.g. quality assurance). In this profile of requirements the use of digital media as used in current web 2.0 applications (this includes the associated constructivist didactics) are still irrelevant in respective recommendations and guidelines. Over the last years, driving schools have equipped themselves with beamer, laptop/PC and video. However, this “mechanization” affects only theoretical instruction and often replicates an ex-cathedra teaching.

This project applies to the practical driver instructor education: The goal is to professionalize the driver instructor education by implementing web 2.0-based video and internet technology using a specially developed internet portal which originates from the field of sports (e.g. HERMES project, coaching strategies). The focus lies on the reflection of the driving and coaching performance of the driver instructor candidates. To actively foster the reflection performance, the driver instructors will be requested to highlight and comment specific scenes in their own videos based on time-stamps. All video comments will be saved in a personal e-portfolio to foster the competency development. From an organizational perspective, such a video accompanied coaching includes the possibility for quality and knowledge management. The project’s aim is to test first approaches and possibilities of a transnational exchange of knowledge to foster a cooperative development of quality.

As a result a job-related internet portal in the field of driver instructor education will be implemented. In the context of a scientific evaluation, experts from the field of e-learning and knowledge management will conduct feasibility and impact studies and document their evaluation results in a final report. Within this project, the potentials of media respectively web 2.0 based driver instructor education will be focused for the first time. This is a novelty for this occupational group. Regarding training driving schools as well the political level of the professional association the added value of the educational technologies (web 2.0) for the promotion of professional skills and instruction quality will be indicated and anchored in practice with selected partners.

Extracted from Driver Instructor Education 2.0