Abstract:

For more than ten years, so-called idea competitions have been taking place within the framework of a cooperation between the Nuremberg Institute of Technology, Faculty of Computer Science, and a local, globally active high-tech company. For more details about the idea competitions pls. refer to [1]. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the teaching-learning setting has changed, and this master-level course has been mostly conducted online.

We make the following main contributions. First, this paper derives indications of how future idea competitions should be designed with a combination of online and face-to-face components. Second, we provide indications for skill deficits of students in online teaching. Third, we show which digital technologies we believe are necessary for a best-of-both-world teaching-learning setting of the idea competition.

In order to investigate the indications for a meaningful combination of online and classroom teaching as well as skill deficits, we perform a 360-degree survey of students, lecturers and the cooperation partner of the current course. Therefore, we extend the existing phase model of the course [1, p. 2494] by including information about which of the participants is in the lead of each phase of the course.

We survey the participants for each course phase whether they absolutely want to carry it out online, prefer online, prefer face-to-face or absolutely want to carry it out in the classroom. The approach we use to identify skill deficits refers to the skills communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity (4 C's).

We draw the following initial conclusions from the survey: In the early phases of the course and towards the end of the course with dry runs and final presentations, all participants prefer the classroom approach. It is characteristic of these phases that, in addition to the auditory and visual channels, the kinesthetic communication channel plays an outstanding role. In contrast, the other phases, which are dominated by the creation of results and coaching, all participants unanimously prefer the online mode. The main reasons for this are flexibility in terms of time and space.

Regarding the 4 C's, according to the students' assessment, there are no skill deficits when switching from face-to-face to online teaching. They feel sufficiently qualified to be able to work confidently in both worlds. However, the survey shows that during the Kick-off Meeting and in the phases with a high proportion of presentations, students rate their own qualification regarding the 4 C's significantly higher in presence. In the phases of idea generation and concept development as well as the preparation of presentations and project reports, students' see their own 4C skills more strongly in the online mode.
Regarding the digital technologies, the essential application for the design of online teaching is Microsoft 365 with MS Teams for communication and collaboration.

In conclusion, there seems to be a correlation between the preferred form of teaching and the skill deficits, which should be elaborated in further research.

References:
[1] R. Groß, K. Freudenthaler, T. Ulrich, “Project-based Learning: Key Success Factors and Benefits for a Teaching-Learning-Setting in the Context of University-Industry Cooperation based on ten Years of Experience”, 12th International Conference on Education, Research and Innovation, 2019.

Keywords:

Project-based learning, university-industry cooperation, idea competition, teaching-learning setting, online, classroom, skills.