Speaker
Description
Mechanics is often regarded as a pure “weeder course” in engineering study programs. The content is generally perceived as extremely difficult, incomprehensible and without any reference to real-life problems. University education often fails to convey the importance and benefits of mechanics for engineering even rudimentarily. In addition, learning objectives are usually only achieved at rather low taxonomy levels, so that students are virtually denied the opportunity to acquire contemporary or, in other words, future skills.
The “DTM – Digitale Technische Mechanik” (loosely translated as “Digital Engineering Mechanics”) project as part of the OERContent.nrw initiative of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia has therefore set itself the goal of reforming the basic teaching of mechanics and bringing it up to date. In a network consisting of eight universities, learning material is being developed that can be used on a modular basis and addresses a much wider range of taxonomy levels and explicitly defined learning objectives. It is based on constructivist learning theories and takes into account concepts such as constructive alignment.
Projects in which realistic problems are posed on the basis of real demonstrators play a central role in the didactic concept. These projects are structured modularly and organized according to learning objectives defined at different taxonomy levels. In addition, these projects require and promote a significantly higher degree of independent learning and independent exploration and validation of solution approaches for engineering problems. In this contribution, we present one of these projects as an example and focus in particular on the problems posed and the associated learning material. We highlight the challenges in design and implementation, as well as the possibilities and advantages that can be achieved through the concept.
