Profile: Education

The Department of Education is dedicated to fundamental research on university continuing education and the professionalization of educational institutions and departments. Special emphasis in research and teaching is placed on the combination of these two areas. Hence the department’s programmes of study include Education and Skills Management, Education Controlling, and Organization and Personnel Development.

A master’s degree course in Educational Management and Leadership is in development. Beginning in 2010, the course will be offered in an international context, with special areas of concentration in in-house continuing education and in academic adult education.

DUW’s Department of Education operates the Research Centre for Education Management and Continuing Education in cooperation with the Department of Education and Psychology at Freie Universität Berlin.

Research

An important focus of the Department of Education is on fundamental research in issues of academic continuing education and the role of the university in the process of lifelong learning.

The Department thus helps to lay the foundations for research-based programmes of study that draw on new, scientifically grounded strategies and methods of teaching and learning in continuing education. By the same token, it also supports application-oriented research in specific practice and profession-oriented areas of the other departments at DUW.

In addition, the Department of Education investigates the individual and institutional requirements for the creation of a new learning culture that promotes skills-oriented learning. Such research is concerned with workplace learning and with the transfer of academic knowledge to occupational structures. Concepts of European educational policy, such as the Bologna process and the European Qualifications Framework, are also very important in this connection, and are also examined in research conducted in the department.