Development and Curricular Anchoring of Blended Learning Course Offers
Blended Learning aims to combine different learning methods and media to enhance their advantages and minimize their disadvantages. In order to support the internationalisation of study programmes, it is important to enable the participation in courses and exams without physical presence.
Within the context of the English-language master's programme European Mining Course, in short EMC, of the Institute of Mineral Resources Engineering, in short MRE, virtual mining environments (in short VR Mine) are being developed and integrated into the course of mineral resource engineering, in short ROI, and anchored in the curriculum.
Such an offer enables the students to virtually explore and study mines in order to develop their understanding of spatial processes, cooperative forms of learning, self-guided learning and dynamic adjustment of the students. With the goal of enabling engineers of the future to master global challenges in a holistic and sustainable manner, the English-language Master of Sustainability - Water and Energy, in short SUMWE, program was initiated at the RWTH Faculty of Civil Engineering in 2017. Over the course of the three and a half years of the project, teaching will be expanded to include Avatar based Teaching and Learning. Here, students experience and manage realistic career perspectives through role plays in VR scenarios.
In order to address the hurdles associated with different international study semesters, the Dynexite examination system developed at RWTH Aachen University will be further expanded. On the one hand, a legally compliant digital examination scenario is being developed for the SUMWE course of study, which allows examinations with flexible time and location. On the other hand, suitable input options, e.g. for mathematical formulas, are being developed and tested for the use of e-exams with Dynexite in the English-language master's degree course in physics. This also allows for exams to be independent of time and location and thus minimizes a barrier to the international mobility of students.