Review of the 2018 Apprenticeship Day

On May 16, this year’s Teaching Day took place under the theme “Blended Learning.” Through engaging presentations from various academic disciplines, participating faculty and students at HSZG gained a diverse insight into a topic that has grown increasingly important in recent years.

Following the opening remarks for Teaching Day by HSZG Vice Rectors Prof. Heidger, the keynote address on “Blended Learning” delivered by Prof. Jürgen Kawalek an introduction to the fascinating field of e-learning, in which traditional approaches (e-learning as enrichment and integration) were discussed and, at the same time, new concepts such as the “flipped classroom” were presented.

Ms. Kersten Kühne and Mr. Patrick Hornung opened the best practices session with a clear and informative presentation on the implementation of technical course content via blended learning, using the example of Control and safety technology in collaboration with Deutsche Bahn. Participants were able to gain insight into the role of the instructor, but also to experience the learner’s perspective and see how students can make use of blended learning opportunities.

Ms. Katja Knauthe provided a very practical demonstration of how the e-learning concept for the part-time degree program in Social Gerontology is implemented and, through the use of the virtual seminar room Adobe Connect, illustrated how a master’s program can be implemented as a blended-learning program.

In the second part, “Implementation,” Mr. Ronny Freudenreich presented approaches to implementing electronic exercises in the STEM field, using the example of Technical Thermodynamics in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Through concrete examples, it became clear how e-assessment has been implemented in STEM fields, what challenges must be overcome, and what opportunities arise from its use.Mr. Daniel Winkler then demonstrated live the use of so-called “audience response systems” (voting systems that can be used “live” in classes / courses) using the examples of “Pingo” and “Invote.” Attendees were able to directly try out the role of students using their smartphones or tablets and received valuable information for the practical use of such polling tools in higher education.

Finally, Mr. Andreas Sommer and Enrico Schuster presented on the topic of course recordings in teaching, explained possible scenarios, and demonstrated the technical implementation (hardware). The presentation was rounded out with concrete examples from the Blended Learning and Course Recording project

In a lively discussion among the numerous participants in attendance, the topic of “TdL” was finally examined from various angles. Overall, the faculty and students from HSZG in attendance were provided with many ideas for the practical application of blended learning arrangements.