Blended Learning - second step

 

Blended Learning Measures of the Department of Computer Science

The goals

Through a suitable mixture and integration of classical, digital, individual and cooperative elements in teaching/learning and examination formats, optimal conditions for excellent teaching and learning at the RWTH should be created in the long term. The following should be specifically named

  • the use of effective and efficient digital teaching formats for teaching, learning and testing,
  • to increase the individual academic success of the students while maintaining the same level of performance and an appropriate duration of study,
  • to offer the further training of the teachers the whole range of formats and measures from basic didactic principles to media-supported teaching.

News

The RWTH uses Moodle as its central learning platform. This open-source software enables tests and online tasks to be created, but it cannot map all types of tasks encountered by computer science students. Due to its modularity, the platform can be easily extended so that self-developed plug-ins can be integrated and used in the practice operation of different computer science modules.

While these plugins automatically evaluate submitted solutions and thus reduce the correction effort during the semester, the students receive a larger task pool during the exam preparation period for repeated practice of the task with always new or modified tasks. The tasks are automatically created by generators and allow you to import several hundred tasks into the Moodle learning room in less than three minutes.

Slidecasts are created with the lecturers to further relieve the teaching load. These discussed slides are made available in videos of 5 to 15 minutes in the learning room of the respective meeting, so that studying can regard individual contents repeatedly.

The small steps of the videos enable a high degree of reusability. Thus, currently produced slidecasts on topics of theoretical computer science (initially in English) are integrated into bachelor courses as well as bridge courses for international students.

The results

  • Creation of a task generator for Moodle quiz tasks of the lecture "Databases and Information Systems".
  • A 4-week JavaScript course is a pure online course that provides basic knowledge of the scripting language. The course consists of screencasts, online tests, submissions (with manual correction by a lecturer) and gamification elements.
  • The JavaScript course is integrated into the lecture "Introduction to WebTechnologies" and accompanied by consultation hours during the lecture hours.

Contact

Prof. Ulrik Schroeder, Sven Judel, Lehr- und Forschungsgebiet Informatik 9 (Lerntechnologien)