Media didactics
Are digital media replacing classroom teaching? – by no means.
Instead, the use of digital tools complements the university’s teaching and learning offerings. Digital tools and applications can be used to provide, visualize, structure and collaborate on content.
They also help you to assess your own learning level. In this way, courses can be made more flexible and individualized and study conditions can be optimized.
We are happy to advise you on the design and implementation of media-supported, didactically coherent teaching and learning scenarios.
Digital support for classroom teaching
Challenges in the lecture hall?
A high complexity of learning content, low motivation or passivity of students, a heterogeneous student body or poorly prepared students – teachers face a number of challenges in some classroom courses. Digital media can support teachers in meeting these and other challenges.
Thus, digital tools are a suitable tool to support the in-depth examination of learning content in face-to-face sessions. Multimedia presentations and simulations, for example, help to present and visualize learning material in a clear and structured way.
Flipped Classroom
The use of digital tools also makes sense across auditorium boundaries, for example in the form of a flipped classroom scenario. Flipped Classroom (or Inverted Classroom) describes a scenario in which classic elements of attendance time (lecture) are shifted to self-study time.
This is usually done by providing online resources, e.g. to prepare for the lecture by reading texts, working on tasks and quizzes or viewing existing lecture recordings. By teaching the content in advance, teachers create space for joint critical, in-depth, application-oriented and research-oriented learning. The following example illustrates the Flipped Classroom using the exemplary sequence of a large event in the form of so-called “Just-in-Time-Teaching” (JiTT)
Good reasons for the Flipped Classroom?
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- Abundance of material and shortage of time: By outsourcing content, time is created to actively deal with the new content and clarify questions during attendance time.
- Less motivated students can be more strongly integrated into the course by activating methods such as Think Pair Share, group work, the use of clickers or PBL elements.
- Individualized and flexible learning opportunities can be created during the online phase. Students can learn at their own pace and with varying intensity depending on their previous knowledge.
Of course there are some points to consider when designing and implementing a flipped classroom scenario. For example, how do lecturers deal with the situation when students arrive unprepared for classroom instruction?
Suggestions for this and further tips and tricks can be found, for example, in our Digital Free Swimmer. Of course we are also available at any time for a personal consultation.
Audience Response Systems
Audience response systems (ARS) are well suited to break up frontal event formats. ARS can be used to obtain direct feedback from students or to initiate a brainstorming session. At the TUHH there are clickers available for this purpose, which you can borrow for your event.
Students can also take part in polls with their smartphones, tablets and the like. There are special licenses for this at the TUHH.
Mrs. Caroline Thon-Gairola from ZLL will advise you on this and all other didactic and technical aspects of using the clicker.
Alternatively, freely accessible, browser-based online feedback systems such as Pingo can be used for this purpose. With these tools, online polls can be easily conducted via smartphone.
Lecture recordings
Last but not least, the TUHH naturally also produces classical lecture recordings. This involves recording the sound, a video image and the presentation of the teachers. The lecture recordings can then be accessed via a link to the respective Stud.IP event. We look forward to working with you to develop ideas for the digital support of your course! For technical questions concerning lecture recordings, the team from the media technology department (medientechnik@tuhh.de) provides support.
SUPPORT SELF-STUDY DIGITALLY
How important self-study is!
Teachers often find that students attend classroom sessions with little or no preparation. Especially in the introductory phase, the ability to self-organize and structure their studies is not sufficiently developed in many students. Moreover, learners with very different levels of prior knowledge come together. These experiences underline the importance of structuring the self-study period in order to promote independent and continuous learning and to level out possible knowledge levels.
Online resources for self-study
Digital learning opportunities can enrich the self-study time in a valuable way. For the provision of online learning resources for example the learning management ILIAS is a good choice. Here you can design complete online learning modules but also tests, surveys and exercises.
Video formats are also suitable: Lecture recordings, individual accompanying instructional videos, tutorials or screencasts, in order to support learners in self-study significantly – both in preparation and in follow-up. Here are some examples:
Screencast
Screencasts are video recordings of activities on a computer screen. The recording is made using software that is either installed on the computer or available online. Screencasts are particularly common as an introduction to the use of software.
Online quiz
An online quiz can have two objectives: On the one hand, it serves as a means of monitoring the learning status of students. If free text questions are omitted, the quiz is evaluated automatically. This keeps the costs for teachers relatively low. On the other hand, a quiz can provide feedback for teachers.
Bridge Course
Online bridging courses(e.g. the OMB+ or ViaMint for mathematics and physics) help students to close knowledge gaps in basic subjects via diagnostic tests even before they begin their studies.
Students as producers
Students can also use digital media to design collaborative learning and work processes that run independently of time and place. These can be jointly developed text products using browser-based applications (such as wikis, etherpads or blogs). Students can also become producers of more extensive digital formats, such as videos and podcasts, in self-study.
It is conceivable, for example, that attempts or experiments are documented on film and the contents are later communicated to the plenum via peer instruction. Media products can also be introduced as an innovative examination format.
We are happy to advise you on the design and development of learning materials for self-study and on how to embed them sensibly in the structure of your course.
Continuous learning
Various digital tools are available to support continuous learning during the semester. In the form of online learning modules (e.g. in ILIAS) learning progress checks and feedback procedures can be initiated.
To reflect on the learning process and for continuous feedback on work results, e-portfolios can be integrated, for example with the software mahara.
Online Peer Feedback
In online peer feedback, students use electronic tools to give each other feedback on their work. Depending on the tool, the feedback can be
- be uploaded in the form of a ready-made form (e.g. for checking criteria)
- be written directly online based on guiding questions (e.g.: “What did I particularly like? What did I not understand?”)
- can be inserted online as comments.
E-examinations
The software EvaExam is available at the TUHH for the realization of e-exams. Teachers can create their exam sheets directly in the software. The evaluation of the answers is mostly automated, so that the correction effort is significantly reduced. The ZLL (especially our specialist for testing, Katrin Billerbeck) is happy to advise on the construction of the questions regarding comprehensibility and complexity of the multiple choice tasks.
"We are happy to support you in planning learning units for learning progress control in a didactically meaningful way and in selecting suitable (open source) tools for their implementation".
Communication and cooperation in Stud.IP
The Stud.IP learning platform at TUHH offers much more than the administration of courses and students. It is used for communication and cooperation among students and teachers, but also provides a variety of didactic options, such as forums, wikis, lecture recordings and exercises.
Learning resources in ILIAS
Stud.IP is complemented by the content management system ILIAS, with whose integrated authoring tool complete online learning modules with info texts, illustrations, instructional videos and exercises can be created. Equally easy to implement in Ilias are various test formats for learning assessment, surveys, peer feedback exercises or glossaries.
Recently the plugin H5P in ILIAS offers the possibility to integrate interactive videos (see H5P video on the left). Due to these diverse possibilities, Stud.IP/ILIAS can be used to initiate flipped classroom scenarios, for example.
We will be happy to work with you to design learning scenarios and materials in Stud.IP and Ilias in order to support your course as efficiently as possible. Feel free to contact us!
Digitaler Freischwimmer
The ZLL has developed an online offering on digital tools in teaching. It provides ideas and very concrete tips on how to use digital tools in your teaching.
Be it weblogs, wikis, screencasts, online quizzes, e-exams, lecture recordings or online whiteboards – find out how you can make sense of these tools and what the stumbling blocks are.
Click here for the Digital Free Float!
LINKS and LITERATURE
Interesting Online Offers
e.teaching.org – An online offer of the Leibniz Institute for Knowledge Media with practice-oriented information on digital university teaching.
Simply good teaching – The Teaching Blog of Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel
Teaching A-Z – Online offer of the Cologne University of Technology – profiles, videos, interviews and links all about good teaching.
Download Teaching – Online offer of the Ruhruniversität Bochung with tips, downloads and literature on digital teaching
Hochschulforum Digitalisierung – Discourse, strategies, topic dossiers and networks around digital higher education
Digital Free Swimmer – Online learning offer of the ZLL (TUHH) on digital tools in teaching
Hamburg Open Online University – Collection of online learning opportunities based on Open Educational Resources
Insights – Teaching and research in the digital experimental field of the TUHH
Exciting literature
Using the full range – Learning with digital media in MINT subjects –Writings on Didactics in Engineering Sciences No. 5 – Center for Teaching and Learning, 2017.
Online whiteboards to support collaborative writing processes –Schermeier, S., Podleschny, N., Stahlberg, N., Schröder, C., & Burkhardt, C. (2018). In: Journal of writing advice. Issue 15 (June 2018): Digital writing – writing in digital environments.
L3T Textbook for Learning and Teaching with Technologies A clear introduction to e-learning.
"Would you like an individual consultation, do you have a workshop request or a question about teaching and learning with digital media?
I look forward to your contact!
Interesting blog posts
Hands on – designing a course with Zoom and Stud.IP
(from the series “Good online didactics with Zoom”) In the article 01 Teaching with Zoom – from a didactic point
Optimise Zoom events with additional tools
Optimise Zoom events with additional tools (from the series “Good online didactics with Zoom”) In article 02 of the series,
Giving feedback with Zoom (and checking with BigBlueButton)
– from the series “Good online didactics with Zoom” – This is the fourth and last part of our series
Podcasts on education policy, university teaching & more
Podcasts are becoming more and more popular – also at ZLL – and bring exciting topics about university teaching &
Monday: Round Table “Digital Teaching and Learning Between Semesters
It’s getting chilly outside and the first digital semester has finally come to an end. Each and every lecturer taught
Digital teaching right before the winter semester – exchange at the round table
What was it about? Professors and academic staff from all disciplines at TU Hamburg, together with representatives of some service
