Talk Lehre 2023

 

The thirteenth edition of the Talk Lehre conference format took place on June 14, 2023, this year focusing on RWTH as a university that maintains class attendance but makes innovative use of virtual formats

As in the previous year, the event was again held in a hybrid format, hosted in person at the C.A.R.L. Lecture hall complex, with all talks and presentations streamed live via Zoom. A total of about 300 people took part in the event, which was moderated by Dr. Malte Persike from the Center for Learning and Teaching Services (CLS),

The first presentation was held by Dr. Peter Salden from Ruhr University Bochum, who provided an initial assessment of the use of generative AI in higher education. He addressed legal and pedagogical perspectives on the use of generative AI tools and presented productive uses of generative AI in science and research.

The second presentation by physics professor Dr. Lutz Feld and Carolin Gnacke from the Center for Teaching and Learning Services focused on the "Lecture Hall 4.0" project. Since 2019, the project partners involved (CLS, IT Center, Departments 5 and 10) have been developing a concept for an optimally equipped standardized lecture hall. The "Lecture Hall 4.0" is to be characterized by standardized operation with settings that can be personalized and support servies for instructors. The project will enter an expansion phase starting in January 2024, aiming for a University-wide expansion of the concept beyond the pilot lecture halls (CARL H01, H02, H03, and the Physics Lecture Hall).

In the third lecture, Professor Aloys Krieg offered insights into the University’s strategy for teaching and learning, including the Quality Management 2.0 initiative. An important step in this context was the Senate's unanimous approval of RWTH's teaching mission statement, which provides a common understanding of teaching and learning at RWTH and defines overarching goals to ensure state-of-the art teaching, learning, and assessment at the University. In addition, Krieg offered an overview of initiatives to further improve teaching and learning and general study consitions at RWTH in the future.

The subsequent poster session invited participants to learn about 25 selected projects and best practice examples presenting teaching and learning at RWTH. The format invited people to get inspired, make contacts, and engage in lively conversation. In addition, for the first time, all online participants had the opportunity to get an insight into the projects exhibited on site.

Three project leaders presented their poster to the online participants and answered their questions in the chat. The following second round of lectures presented further best practice examples from teaching and learning at RWTH.

Professor Carmen Leicht-Scholten presented her flipped classroom concept "Consideration of Diversity in Content, Structure, and Didactics". In addition to the actual concept for the lecture "Engineering & Society", she presented the newly developed grade bonus portfolio as well as the results of the scientific evaluation on motivation and skills acquisition. Addressing perspectives of diversity as a topic itself but also methodically and didactically, the lecture is based on teaching and learning formats such as blended learning and flipped classrooms besides joint discussions and independent learning and reflection.

Meanwhile, in their talk, Professor Habel and Professor Nacken explained that one of the goals of RWTH 's Internationalization Strategy is to increase the University’s visibility abroad and to attract outstanding international students. Straightforward and convincing information about the unique opportunities for teaching and research at the University is essential for this. They have thus created a virtual reality area that students can use to get an overview of the degree programs offered in English and research activities at RWTH. They can access this information with an avatar in a 3D environment. The application’s software is based on the DAAD's MyScore Project and can be made available to other universities as open-source software.

In her talk on Visual Thinking, Laura Platte showed that visualizations are a powerful tool for making complex content understandable. Studies from educational psychology show that visualizations can be particularly effective when students create them themselves, incorporating content from texts and PowerPoint slides as mind maps, diagrams, or visual metaphors. The ETS project SKETCH sees a visualization training developed for students in a blended learning format. Platte’s talk gave an insight into their initial experiences with these formats.

At the end of the Talk Lehre event, Hendrik Morgenstern presented how new teaching and learning formats were successfully developed and implemented in the module "Building Conservation". Among other things, the teaching material was digitalized and made available to students online. For example, students can now prepare for e-exams with the help of detailed instructional films or a quiz app. Virtual cooperation is also facilitated through digital group work or group work involving digital simulation and collaboration software (Building Information Modelling, or BIM for short).

The digital posters for the Talk Lehre event can be found below in the Downloads section. The videos of the talks will follow soon.