Wandelwerk. Zentrum für Qualitätsentwicklung
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The paper describes the design, facilitation and outcomes of a series of workshops with faculty, staff and students from a teacher education program specialized in vocational education and training (VET). We analyze and reflect upon the facilitation techniques, discussion and participation results, and evaluation of the workshop series. Practitioners and researchers alike will find this article a valuable source for contemplating the effectiveness of design thinking, making and serious play in teacher education. While our case study is situated in the particular context of preparing future vocational teachers within the German VET system, the resulting concepts are applicable to other teacher education programs
The article describes and evaluates the concept and format of a 2-day design thinking workshop with vocational teacher candidate students. Drawing from our experiences as instructors as well as the qualitative feedback we received from students, we critically discuss what worked well and what was lost. We contrast the outcomes of this workshop with previous design thinking activities. The results highlight the qualities of design thinking that necessitate interaction in physical spaces, as well as opportunities for design thinking activities in a digitized format. As many regions experience second waves of COVID-19, educational programs will face the challenge of transforming physically co-located instruction to a completely virtual format. Our results can serve as a guide on how to recuperate energy and engagement for highly interactive seminars and workshops
Africa recognised the potential of digital transformation before the COVID-19 pandemic. With the Digital Transformation Strategy, the continent committed itself to support this change in line with the Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want with focus on investment in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) , the promotion of the digital economy and the adoption of open and distance learning in tertiary education. However, the pandemic has given renewed impetus for digital change in higher education. The shutdowns of educational institutions brought about by COVID-19 have demonstrated that teaching and learning can be re-designed and educational institutions developed further, with the sprouting of collaborations in and across countries and continents. The drive for digital transformation, which is now gaining momentum throughout higher education institutions worldwide, is of major significance in giving renewed stimulus to one of the boldest agendas that have been adopted by mankind, the SDGs, the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.
The quality management system of FH Münster, a German university of applied sciences with 15.000 students, was established ten years ago. The main goal was to systematically foster reflection on quality issues in all faculties. In 2016, the concept was transferred to the level of institutional reaccreditation: A procedure called „cumulative accreditation“ was implemented, including e.g. a public symposium.
On both levels, the author experienced that joint reflection on quality issues may encourage academics to change habits and improve study programmes. However, sometimes desirable changes will not happen. Instead of asking for sanctions and incentives, the article suggests another approach: the creation of learning opportunities for university members.
Learn anything, anytime, anywhere is the mantra for learning in the digital age. Digital learning opportunities are increasingly challenging traditional classroom learning – but what does this mean for the conceptual design and design-in-use of campus spaces as learning locations? Does space really not matter in learning? During a two-day design thinking workshop an interdisciplinary group of 17 students produced ideas for new learning spaces and mapped out their spatial learning journeys through campus offerings and daily routines. The article describes the workshop concept and resulting insights gleaned from interviews, customer journeys, and prototyping. It offers ideas and examples for creating inviting learning spaces and cultures that focus on co-presence both with and without digital tools.
Teaching People to program is a crucial requirement for our society to deal with the complexity of 21st-century challenges. In many teaching systems, the student is required to use a particular programming language or development environment. This paper presents an intelligent tutoring system to support blended learning scenarios, where the students can choose their programming language and development environment. For that, the system provides an interface where the students request test data and submit results to unit test their algorithms. The submitted results are analyzed by a machine learning system that detects common errors and provides adaptive feedback to the student. With this system, we are focusing on teaching algorithms rather than specific programming language semantics. The technical evaluation tested with the implementation of Mean and Median algorithm shows that the system can distinguish between error cases with an error rate under 20%. A first survey, with a small group of students, shows that the system helps them detect common errors and arrive at a correct/valid solution. We are in the process of testing the system with a larger group of students for gathering statistically reliable data.
Disruption, Machine Learning, Internet of Things, Augmented Reality, Industry 4.0 and Rapid Prototyping are just a selection of the buzzwords that come up in connection with the rapid changes in the professional world and society brought about by digitalisation. As frequently occurs when buzzwords are used, their exact meaning is unknown, or remains unquestioned, but the use of them is nevertheless excessive. In this way, the buzzword ‘digital native’ assumes that an entire generation has a command of digital skills simply because they were born into this world and use digital media naturally. Which skills profiles this generation, and therefore a majority of today’s students, actually command, remains vague however, and is rarely explored systematically. The same is true of the specific formulation of necessary skills profiles in the digital world for higher education graduates. In the debate around higher education institutions, the description of the swift digital transition (with or without buzzwords) is not usually followed by a revision of existing curricula. This article describes strategic considerations for a better fit between the skills demanded of students and the challenges of the digital world.