Developing an accreditation system to recognize competence in mathematics education students in Germany

Abstract

As acquiring skills and competences in ICTs are not fixed in university curricula in Germany yet, the ICT-skills gained by the students cannot be accredited formally. Therefore, the idea is to use an Open Digital Badge system to award the students on the one hand and to enable them to show their competences to their future employers on the other hand. The purpose of this paper is to use a South African example of how an accreditation system was applied for gained competence and to develop a similar system that has been implemented and applied on mathematics education students at Siegen University in Germany. Therefore, this paper describes a teacher professional development course where competences of teachers were recognised as they acquired specific skills and competence and this was adapted to be performed during teacher training education at the University of Siegen. The course focuses on the use of ICTs in education. The University of Siegen applies the design science research methodology to develop the accreditation system.