Learning Layers – What have we learned during Application Partner Days in Bremen (Part 2)
As I mentioned in my previous post, I am preparing brief reports of field visits that took place this week as a part of the Application Partner Days (APDs) of the Learning Layers (LL) project. This blog article focuses on the visit to the training centre area of Bau ABC in Rostrup (West of Bremen).
As we have been informed in the project, Bau ABC is one of the two major training centres set up by the umbrella organisation of building and construction sector in North Germany (Bauindustrieverband Niedersachsen-Bremen) and it is run as an operative arm of a support association for training in building and construction sector (Verein zur Berufsförderung der Bauwirtschaft Nord e.V.). The training centre Bau ABC in the municipality of Rostrup covers a wide range of occupational fields including initial VET (Erstausbildung), continuing training (Weiterbildung), training of Master Craftsmen (Meisterschulung) and other measures to support professional development of construction specialists.
During our tour round the premises of Bau ABC we had the chance to look firstly at the workshops of carpenters (Zimmerer), concrete builders (Betonbauer), and metal workers (Metaller). In outdoor areas we saw the training sites for groundwork builders (Erdebauer), road builders (Strassenbauer) and borehole builders (Brunnenbauer). Then, in the next workshops we had a chance to inform ourselves more of the training of borehole builders (Brunnenbauer) and of bricklayers (Maurer). Finally we saw the special areas for security training with focus on occupational hazards that are related to explosions.
The afternoon program of the visit consisted of two parallel sessions. One session was organised as a Focus Group involving some of the research partners and a number of trainers (Lehrwerkmeister) and participants in advanced training programs from Bau ABC. This group focused on the User Stories and tried to get further insights into workplace learning and uses of new technologies. Parallel to this session there was a small ‘carousel’ workshop in which some of the technical partners hosted small tables and participants from construction sector rotated between the tables.
The technical partner teams (Graz, Tribal, Aalto and Karlsruhe/Pontydysgu) had made their own preparations for a dialogue session. Bau ABC had provided exemplars of apprentices’ and trainees’ working and learning tasks. Based on these inputs (and on some use stories) the technical partners informed themselves of problems or challenges in construction work and workplace learning. Then the discussion geared towards looking for possible solutions – uses of technology, uses of software and uses of networks and web resources.
At the end of the day all participants had experienced manifold discussions and the participants from Bau ABC had done their best to feed in inputs, ideas and experiences. So, there was much food for thought to be digested.
To be continued …
