Integrating Blended Learning – On the Way to an Excellent Didactical Method-Mix for Engineering Education

Abstract

University education has changed vastly in the last years. Constantly growing student numbers, the necessity of on-professional competences especially in engineering education and new technical possibilities have influenced the development of new didactical concepts. To cope with these circumstances a didactical set, which combines as many benefits as possible from different didactical methods would be preferred. Therefore, different field tested as well as tailored didactical elements are combined and integrated with the objective to enhance the quality of engineering education. This new approach is applied within the lecture Communication and Organisation Development (KOE), which is frequented by up to 1,400 first semester students of the faculty of mechanical engineering. The lecture is an inherent part of the bachelor-curriculum of mechanical engineering to fulfill the RWTH Aachen University’s objective to foster on-professional competences from the very beginning of a student’s career. After defining goals for restructuring the lecture from a blended learning perspective, the original and content-orientated lecture was redesigned in the winter term 2012/2013 and enhanced by implementing the flipped classroom concept with a discussion forum in the winter term 2013/2014. Students can access relevant learning documents via an online platform and can make use of the discussion forum in terms of a participatory interaction event. This method-mix is based on the cube model developed by Baumgartner and Payr (1996), which combines different perspectives and levels of a diverse teaching approach. The KOE lecture was evaluated twice (beside the common university-wide evaluation for lectures, the blended learning approach was assessed explicitly) and practical oriented elements were rated very positively. Making use of the cube model as well as the results of the evaluation led to an identification of further demands for optimisation. Following these demands, the related lab tutorial starting in the upcoming winter term will be redesigned. Students are supposed to work in a fictional mechanical engineering enterprise and different duty cycles shall be simulated. The overall plan is to construct a production robot using Lego Mindstorms. This paper – based on the applied cube model – describes the current didactical method-mix, presents demands identified by recent evaluation and introduces developments and optimizations following the blended learning approach for engineering education.