The needs-oriented approach of the Dresden school of engineering pedagogy and education

Abstract

This paper presents different aspects about the Needs-Oriented Approach on Engineering Pedagogy and Education developed since 1951 at the Technische Universität Dresden (Germany). Prof. Hans Lohmann founded in 1951 the Engineering Pedagogy Institute at the TU Dresden in his quest to systematize and to professionalize at an institutional level the teaching and research in engineering. Engineering Pedagogy is an interdisciplinary scientific subject that collect the “needs” and “demands” of: engineering and technical sciences, pedagogy and didactic and the education system in itself (see Lohmann 1954; Melezinek 1999). Lohmann’s work is continued at the present at the Institute for Vocational Education at TU Dresden, in charge of Prof. Hanno Hortsch (currently President of IGIP), who leaded many research projects in engineering education in Germany and another countries. Kersten (2015) proposes a scheme that describes the factors that influence and condition the Engineering Education: (i) the economic sector, (ii) engineering sciences, (iii) society, and (iv) the student (see Kersten et al. 2015). The results of two surveys show the (1) “needs” of academic training related to the different pedagogical aspects, and (2) “needs” for different knowledge, skills and technological tools for the teaching in engineering careers in relation to current and future industrial requirements. A Needs-Oriented Engineering Pedagogy seeks to establish a teaching and learning process that is better focused on the context where it develops.