Speaker
Description
The growing discrepancy between the rapidly changing requirements for competencies in engineering and the rigid structures at universities is causing ever-increasing frustration, longer study times, high dropout rates, and, last but not least, dwindling enrollment figures. The challenges of overcoming these discrepancies seem insurmountable. In this lecture, we would like to discuss measures, methods and concepts that are taking the first essential steps towards solving this problem.
The ability to obtain knowledge or, more generally, information from external sources and to use it effectively and efficiently for one’s own work has developed rapidly in recent years. In particular, the use of AI-based tools is revolutionizing modern professional and everyday life. These developments, which will have lasting effects, bring with them completely new demands for urgently required competencies. These are also referred to as “future skills” and include, on the one hand, the classic skills such as “problem-solving abilities”, “adaptability” and “perseverance”. It should be noted in this context that in the vast majority of cases, students are unable to achieve even these classic skills in the current higher education system. On the other hand, these classic skills are extended by “basic digital skills” and “technological skills”. The “basic digital skills” include, for example, “digital literacy”, “collaboration” and “digital learning”. Together with the “classic skills”, these form the set of urgently required skills for all employees – across the board, so to speak. On top of that, there are the challenges “at the top” and the associated “technological skills” such as “complex data analysis”, “smart hardware development” and “user experience design”.
In this contribution, we would like to explain elementary concepts and good practice examples that particularly promote the design of motivational teaching – the essential basis for acquiring contemporary competencies and, among other things, reducing the average duration of studies. The results and conclusions of the GAMM-funded workshop “New Ways in Teaching: From Teaching to Learning Events”, which took place at the TU Dortmund on June 10-11, 2024, also serve as a basis for this. The in-depth discussions revealed that certain didactic methods, which we will explain in more detail in our presentation, have a very positive influence on aspects such as student motivation, student autonomy, and the skills and competencies that can be achieved.
