Page 84 - Research Report 2021 - Institut für Leichtbau und Kunststofftechnik

What major advantages, if any does in your opinion Have you found (good) substitutes for the limited or
digital teaching or learning offer to you as a student? even temporarily suspended sports courses offered by
What would you not want to do without in the future? the university sports centre?

Location-flexible working offers considerable advantages and Especially after a whole day of digital teaching in front of the
I would not want to do without it. Especially the elimination computer at home, the urge for movement and exchange
of commuting times. with friends is huge. The discontinuation of the previously
broad sports programme at the University Sports Centre was
How did you get to know or keep in touch with fellow a considerable loss.
students? In general, how does networking work for
you without face-to-face teaching?

Establishing contact with each other only via digital formats
is complicated. Many people still draw on existing friend-
ships or learning communities from the times before Corona.
Group work during the course is one way of breaking things
up, which in a purely digital format can provide the neces-
sary impetus for joint learning and exchange.

Reply of a lecturer (46 years)

The sudden changeover from face-to-face to digital How well were your teaching contents and methods
teaching in 2020 demanded a lot of additional work received by the students? Was there any opportunity
from lecturers. Not only did complete lecture series at all to get feedback?
have to be made available as video formats, exercises
and practical courses had to be partially redesigned. In The students obviously engaged with the provided content.
addition, a large part of the face-to-face lectures were The exercises conducted via video conferencing were received
cancelled last year due to the ongoing pandemic or had well. However, there was some “fatigue” towards the end of the
to be held as so-called hybrid lectures. How well were semester. It can also be assumed that it is generally easier to
you able to profit from the preparatory work of the first criticise digitally, for example in surveys, than live in the course.
pandemic year? What impression or opinion, if any, did
you gain from the hybrid events? Would you also adopt digital formats in a regular
course largely determined by face-to-face lectures, and
On the one hand, it is convenient to be able to rely on al- if so, which ones?
ready existing videos and instructions. On the other hand,
it is particularly difficult to incorporate changes and exten- As already indicated above, I will try to use the newly gained
sions, which are always part of scientific teaching. In my ex- digital possibilities – software, experimental data evaluation,
perience, students also lack direct contact with the lecturers. video lectures, etc. – for follow-up work in an appropriate way.

Have you perhaps discovered and used completely What major advantages, if any does in your opinion
new formats or didactic methods for yourself? digital teaching offer for students?

The integration of data, the transfer of larger amounts of The biggest advantage is probably the possibility of repeating
data, and the use of freeware or open source software was and precisely analysing the learning content. Possibly, the
new and inspiring for me. Even beyond the pandemic, stu- freedom in time management is greater than before, since
dents will now be better able to practise on their own with you can receive a lecture “on demand” rather than at the
digitally influenced teaching content. Where we previously given time.
used the CAD pools once for exercises with expensive special
software and there was hardly any further practicing time How important is personal contact (in face-to-face
afterwards, now it simply continues at home. events) with students for you? Are social networks,
e-mail, video conferences, etc. a fully-fledged substi-
tute on this point?

Personal interaction is important for both students and
teachers, but it is always challenging as well. You stand in
front of the students with your whole personality and cannot
hide. However, the higher effort involved seems to be worth it.

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