Björn Vrooman Oct 13, 2014:

"'Department of Education' sounds too much like a government ministry for my liking" - my thought exactly. But then I looked up the universities in the UK:

http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/
http://www.bath.ac.uk/education/
http://www.york.ac.uk/education/
http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/education

You also have Insitute of/for Education, School of Education, and Faculty of Education, depending on how the university is structured.

Oh my...

Lancashireman Oct 13, 2014:

'Department of Education' sounds too much like a government ministry for my liking, though nowadays the preposition of choice seems to be 'for'. 'Education Department' (at the University of xyz) is more like it. Apart from training postgraduate students for a career in teaching, the lecturers and profs will also be trying to boost their academic credentials with publications of a learned nature on teaching method(ology).

Björn Vrooman Oct 13, 2014:

@Andrew Thanks, that was just about what I was looking for. Question remains whether "Teacher Training" includes the research part as well (because I found that one, too, but it seems more "hands-on" than the German one).

Based on your suggestion, I could imagine calling it Department of Science Education (Biology), similar to: http://www.csuchico.edu/sced/faculty_staff.shtml

Oxford University has the Department of Education and the subcategory Science for educational studies as shown below.

PS: The German doesn't sound any better. Teachers may be OK with it, but having "Fachdidaktik" as an academic department just sounds odd and awful at the same time.

Lancashireman Oct 12, 2014:

'Department of Biology Teaching' sounds really naff. Pursuing this lead, however, I could imagine 'Department of Teacher Training (Biology)'. The appending of the subject name in brackets is a more elegant solution than trying to cram it into the title. Many such examples here: http://tinyurl.com/pd9qvc6

Björn Vrooman Oct 12, 2014:

To Horst's comment At least in the US, you'll find a department like this:
"The Department of Curriculum and Instruction offers a variety of undergraduate and graduate Academic Programs as well as course work for teacher certification. Full-time faculty members teach and conduct research in a broad range of subject areas including mathematics, science, social studies, literacy, art, gifted education, early childhood education, and instructional technology."

http://www.coe.uh.edu/academic-departments/cuin/

Seems to say the same as in German.

In the UK, again, you'll have the "Institute of Education" and "Science: Biology" as a course, similar to Oxford:
http://www.ioe.ac.uk/study/IPGS_SCB99F.html

Or, in the US, "Biology Education":
http://www.lifescied.org/

What would probably also refer to the German Fachdidaktik, is an American scientific journal which, indeed, uses "biological" as an adjective:
"Journal of Biological Education"
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjbe20/current#.VDsNOfl_uSp

I hope that has nothing to do with birds-and-bees explanations to your kids...

Björn Vrooman Oct 12, 2014:

That's how a Fachdidaktik looks like: "Herzlich willkommen am Institut für die Didaktik der Biologie

Wir bilden die zukünftigen Lehrerinnen und Lehrer für Biologie an Gymnasien, Realschulen, Grund- und Mittelschulen sowie Förderschulen aus.

In der Verbindung von Fachwissenschaft und den Erziehungswissenschaften erforschen wir das Lernen und Lehren biologischer Inhalte und vermitteln neueste didaktische Erkenntnisse ebenso wie Bewährtes in Studium und Lehre."
http://www.didaktik.bio.lmu.de/

Oxford (Department of Education) says:
"The teaching of the sciences in schools is normally organised within a single Science department or faculty to which teachers from the different sciences contribute their respective expertise.

Such a structure is reflected in the Oxford Department which, while actively recruiting for teachers of the separate sciences – biology, chemistry and physics – works as a co-ordinated team of scientists."
http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/courses/pgce/subjects/science/

One of the courses I've found is "Biology Teaching":
http://www.lipscomb.edu/biology/biology-teaching

My question to you Andrew: Could we just omit "methodology" and write "Department of Biology Teaching"?

Lancashireman Oct 12, 2014:

Aachen "the modeling of process-related competencies" Cute!

Lancashireman Oct 12, 2014:

I especially like the Jena link: "Didactics of biology is the science of teaching biological content and methodoloy." (methodoloy - sic!)

Björn Vrooman Oct 12, 2014:

@Andrew I was only referring to the name of departments. Do you remember the question about "Bundesamt für Migration"? With regard to my second question, some of these Fachdidakten already have their English names as "Didactics" (which is not to say that I like it!):

http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/(en)/biologie/forschung/arbeitsb...
http://www.biologie.rwth-aachen.de/cms/Biologie/Fachgruppe/I...
http://www.uni-jena.de/en/Research_Group_Biology_Didactics.h...

If the asker's text is referring to any of these and the respective department has already published many papers, SEO-wise you're out of luck - you'll probably never find the department based on any of the answers given.

You could work your way around the issue by leaving the term in German and writing the English equivalent (including "methodology") in parentheses.

Would actually serve two purposes: Have a new translation and remind them that the old one may not work so well.

Lancashireman Oct 12, 2014:

When I was doing my PGCE some time in the last century, they tried their best to teach us the 'methodology' (Modern Languages & Classics). We then developed our 'techniques' at the chalk face.

Björn Vrooman Oct 12, 2014:

@EUB Two questions:

1) Are you still looking for an answer? I think what the answers so far have been missing is that you like to know the name of an academic department. I've tried to search the web for the suggestions given, but came up empty. "methodology" usually refers to research alone; "techniques" are not used as far as I can see. I may have found something, but I don't know whether it warrants a separate answer.

B) Is there an already established name for your Fachdidaktik? There are some German universities which have English pages and an English translation of the term. I remember a related discussion where I said that it might be prudent to keep whatever name they had chosen, even if you didn't like it. This time, it's not only about a preposition, but about entire words. And if your article is not going to be found by anyone on the web because you invented a new name...well, depends on how you do it.

Horst Huber (X) Oct 11, 2014:

We might also remember that, in German, one would distinguish between "Didaktik des Biologieunterrichts" and "Methodik des Biologieunterrichts". The writers of the texts in question would make a deliberate choice.