EXPERIENCES WITH A BLENDED LEARNING SCHEME BASED ON THE VIRTUAL TECHNOLOGY LAB

For more than five years now a unique blended learning system is utilized to improve teaching in high technology as microsystems technology (MST, resp. MEMS). The blended learning consists of a combination of the virtual technology laboratory (VTL), regular lectures on MST, and finally a practical course, where students can gain real hands-on experiences in a high technology laboratory. Only recently we added a webinar to further improve the “online” capabilities of our teaching scheme.

The hands-on-training in high technology areas is usually limited due to the high cost for lab infrastructure and equipment. One specific example is the field of MEMS: High investments and elevated effort to upkeep the cleanrooms with delicate MST equipment hinder easy access for educational purposes. Industry, in contrast, requires qualified engineers with substantial practical experience backed by profound theoretical know how.

In order to allow students to gather real experimental “hands-on” experiences in high technology fields we have adopted the cost sharing strategy of the foundry concept of the microelectronics industry to education and combined it with an efficient e-learning tool for preparatory training. The expensive clean room laboratory of the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern is used by a number of different universities, allowing them to offer their students unique hands-on microfabrication training without the need to operate a clean room themselves. To facilitate effective use of the equipment within a one week excursion a blended learning concept is being used. The students are virtually trained to operate the fabrication tools at their home institutions by a set of computer simulations and animations, called the virtual technology laboratory (VTL). The VTL can be regarded as a flight simulator for high-tech MST equipment. This e-learning based training is followed by one week full-time laboratory courses in the foundry clean room. The VTL enables the students to operate most of the equipment with a minimum of supervision. The courses comprehend a complete manufacturing process for a silicon pressure sensor.

More than five years of experience have shown the combination of preparatory computer based training and compact but intense lab courses to be a well suited and cost effective concept for gaining high quality practical experience in high technology fields. First gender specific evaluation of a 2009 course with sufficient female participants give hints that the internet based course preparation by the VTL and webinar regarded significantly different by male and female students. So it might be a further topic in educational research in the future how to improve the VTL (or blended learning) considering the gender specific kind of learning in high tech engineering.