Motivation

Learning factories are a suitable instrument for vocational education and training because they make complex relationships comprehensible and tangible. A real production system is used as the learning environment, which uses real equipment and processes. The concept of the learning factory thus fulfils current learning theory requirements for situating, action and work process orientation as well as authenticity. Nevertheless, due to the high complexity in the industrial production environment, it is difficult for training participants to transfer learned skills to the operational application situation. In order to achieve sustainable learning success, this transfer must be supported. However, new learning environments for work process and problem-oriented learning are often not available in vocational education and training.

Objectives and procedure

The aim of the project is to facilitate the transfer of production-related training and further education contents into company practice by means of a teaching/learning concept (LLK) based on virtual reality (VR). With the help of VR, training participants should work on transfer-oriented tasks in virtual space directly after training in the learning factory and receive experience-based feedback through active action. The focus is on adaptation and personalisation of the learning process. It should be possible to adapt the tasks and the complexity of the learning environment presented individually to the respective training participant.

Specifically, the project will develop and validate an LLK for the design of virtual transfer training. In addition, a guideline will be created which enables the development of virtual action tasks for different target groups, training formats and learning contents, taking into account media-didactic aspects. The developed procedure will first be implemented in the process learning factory CiP (Centre for Industrial Productivity) at the Institute for Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW) at the Technical University of Darmstadt (TUDa) using the example of an existing training course and tested and further developed together with several partner companies. In the process, the learning success is measured during the training and subsequently in participating companies on site. Finally, the procedure for application will be extended to other training formats to ensure broad applicability beyond learning factories and disseminated via the partner network, among others.

Together with the PTW, the Media Education Department of the Institute for General and Vocational Education (APAED) at the TU Darmstadt and Kirchner Konstruktionen GmbH are working on the project.

Funding source

Project sponsor