Teacher Training at Studienseminar für berufliche Schulen

Studienseminar für berufliche Schulen is a seminar for teachers in VET. Teacher trainees complete a 21-month program to professionalize as a teacher in VET before they start in employment as civil servants in a vocational school.

Vocational Education and Training – VET

Strictly speaking, the German term „Berufsschule“, stands for a dual system of school and in-company training. This dual system is highly efficient and mostly considered the heart of VET in Germany. Yet, vocational schools also offer a wide range of full-time courses that lead to general school leaving degrees with professional orientation, full-time vocational training, or prevocational education.

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Teacher Trainers

Our teacher trainers guide and support teacher trainees during the 21-month training program. Usually a team of three teacher trainers assists every new teacher trainee during this time. Our teacher trainers are qualified and experienced staff, who also teach at vocational schools.

Teacher Trainees

Trainees in vocational education have varied biographies, degrees, and ages. Yet, they all have in common that they intend to or already work in vocational education. Some trainees have a university degree that leads immediately into further education with us, others have a general university degree or a craftsman diploma in a vocational field and want to continue their career in VET.

The Program

We offer a 21-month-program, during which our trainees are civil servants and receive a salary. This is a training on-the-job in cooperation with one of the 25 vocational schools in our region. At school, teacher trainees teach 10-12 lessons. At the seminar, the training is scheduled into different modules in the vocational field and the subject area, as well as general pedagogics.

Vocational Fields and Subject Area

Electrical Engineering
Nutrition and Home Economics
Health Care
Metal Engineering
Fashion and Design
Social Work and Social Sciences
Business Administration
Agriculture and Gardening
Building and Construction
Scientific Technology
Printing and Media
Painting and Interior Decorating
Information Technology
Personal Care

Biology
German
English
Sports
Mathematics
Politics
Chemistry
French
Spanish
History
Computer Science
Physics
Ethics
Religion (protestant) / (roman-catholic)

The Different Steps of the Program

In the first three months we offer a general orientation and coaching for the novice trainees. They are introduced into the ongoing work in vocational fields and subjects. At school they sit in on classes and teach their first lessons.

In the central semesters, trainees teach 10-12 lessons at school. At the seminar they find ideas and assistance for their teaching. In general pedagogical modules they will focus e.g. on learning styles, pedagogical theory, assessment or coaching according to their needs. In modules for the vocational field or the subject we usually look mainly at the practical teaching, thus plan, teach and reflect lessons.
We expect every trainee to participate in a one-week European excursion and reflect the experience to broaden horizons.

In the last semester trainees teach 6-8 lessons at school. They complete a thesis on a practical learning sequence and do a final exam, presenting two lessons and a colloquium.

European Activity

Our seminar takes part in the European program “Hessische Europaschulen” which is supported by the Hessian Ministry for Education. Together with 33 schools in Hesse we develop school and education on a European basis. We cooperate with vocational schools, companies, universities, and institutions for teacher training. For our teacher trainees we offer a one-week excursion to one of our European partners.

Furthermore, we regularly work in European projects supported by the National Agency. Right now we cooperate with Haaga Helia University in Helsinki in an Erasmus+ project called Vocational Education and Training 4.0: Transnational cross-phase cooperation for the further development of media-based teaching arrangements in the modular work “education and counselling” (EBB) and “diagnostics, support and assessment” (DFB). The aim of the project is the development of teacher training concepts, especially in the field of digital counselling.

Our European Partners

Since many years we have been working together with partners all over Europe. In the following we present those partners we frequently cooperate with in European projects. Of course, there exist more contacts to various institutions of vocational training, further education and teacher training in many countries.