Teaching and learning globally connected using live online classes for preparing international engineering students for transnational collaboration and for studying in Germany

Abstract

Students who are leaving their home country for taking part in an international study program face several challenges. Not only the new course of studies can be very challenging but also their whole living conditions may change significantly. This can be a severe clash especially for students who are moving to a country with a totally different cultural background in comparison to their home countries. Moreover it can profoundly complicate the first weeks at the new university. Knowing about the difficulties the Institute of Forming Technology and Lightweight Construction (IUL) at TU Dortmund University in Germany developed a three-weeks preparational online course for those international students coming to the IUL for their Master of Science program in Manufacturing Technology (MMT), a special international master program. In context of this course the use of the IUL's remote laboratory equipment was a key aspect. The course itself was implemented and delivered for the first time in 2014. It was designed to prepare the students as best as possible for their new studies at a German university and at the same time prepare them for transnational collaboration. Hence this course is a good example for a meaningful integration of remote laboratories into an innovative curriculum. Without this technology such course concepts with students distributed all over the world would not be possible. Making use if this technology brings the international course participants together and puts them into the situation to interact in context of a typical engineering situation, the experiment. The paper presents the course and experiences from its first implementation.