Abstract:

In engineering education, it is important to teach basic knowledge combined with creative action. This enables students to develop the skills required for research-oriented engineering thinking and acting.

The engineering education at our university is based on basic studies. In addition to the education in mathematics and physics, the fundamentals are systematically taught in a combination of the basic subjects from the study courses of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, information technology and computer science.

The engineers work is increasingly characterised by teamwork, interdisciplinary work and the agile handling of projects. This also implies changes in the required technical, methodological and social skills of engineers and thus in engineering education. Therefore, engineering students should be given the opportunity to gain experience in working on complex interdisciplinary projects in teams from the start of their studies.

In addition to the systematic theoretical training, new problem and object-oriented elements have been developed. The associated practical application of the imparted subject-specific fundamentals is intended to support professional curiosity, motivation for the subject, as well as the understanding of the subject-specific fundamentals, and to support the establishment of learning groups.

One challenge is to identify those project topics that enable the application of the technical fundamentals in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science, but which can be worked on by first-year students. A concept for the integration of semester-accompanying interdisciplinary projects into the introductory phase of studies has been developed and successfully tested over the past 10 years with 500 students at our university. The project groups worked on currently relevant tasks in the fields of electromobility and energy technology.

The implementation of the concept for integrating the complex interdisciplinary project work in project groups required a holistic approach of didactic, organisational and technical measures. The article describes how this was done and what measures have proved to be effective in supporting the student project groups. The comprehensive involvement of the students in the further development of the project offers and in the implementation of supportive learning offers (Service Learning) is also important for the implementation of the concept.

The use of digital technologies provides the basis for designing the learning opportunities that have emerged in a flexible and resource-saving manner and, if required, for offering them to even larger groups of students. Existing applications are used, configured and expanded in a targeted manner (e.g. specially configured work areas in the LMS, RemoteLab applications and simulations to illustrate subject-specific relationships).

Keywords:

Engineering education, collaborative and problem-based learning, STEM education.