The TU Ilmenau is launching a project on innovative formats for digital university teaching: a basic course for prospective engineers that combines the advantages of classroom and digital teaching. The new basic course is to be offered in parts in early summer.
Dr. Meike Hofmann from the Group for Technical Optics at TU Ilmenau is leading the SIMGAM project - "Simulations and Games in the Self-Study Phases of a Blended Learning Basic Course". The project develops new learning formats with which students can adapt learning phases to their personal needs and thus make their self-study more attractive. Digital tools, for example videos, computer games and other computer applications, are used for this purpose. Learning content is recorded and is thus available at any time. In order to progress to the next learning unit, tests can be completed and points collected. Such game-like elements are intended to increase the students' motivation to deal with learning content independently and to optimise their learning progress. Phases of self-study are combined with face-to-face events or video conferences or hybrid events, in which in-depth knowledge is imparted and complicated issues are explained in detail. In addition, teachers and students can exchange ideas in person - an essential prerequisite for successful learning.
Innovative university teaching
The SIMGAM project will be carried out, among other things, within the framework of a project seminar. It is also planned to involve student assistants, who will be financed with the funding, as well as necessary technical aids. "The project is a step towards the systematic development of innovative university teaching with digital support," says Prof. Anja Geigenmüller, Vice President for Studies and Teaching at the university. In her estimation, the Corona pandemic has fundamentally changed university teaching, and not only in Germany: "While we had to switch to online teaching rather involuntarily in spring 2020, we are now faced with the challenge of combining the best of both worlds - online teaching and face-to-face teaching - to create a new teaching quality." Combining online and face-to-face forms of teaching is the need of the hour, he said.
The SIMGAM project is funded with 50,000 euros for one year as part of the joint program "Fellowships for Innovations in Digital University Teaching" of the Donors' Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanities in Germany and the Thuringian Ministry of Economics, Science and Digital Society.