"Our task is to enable students to educate themselves comprehensively, both academically and personally," explains Gunther Kreuzberger: "We want to enable them to work independently academically, but also to strengthen their ability to think critically across disciplines and to develop their own potential in the best possible way in order to achieve their personal goals."
The scientist would like to show how this can be achieved even better in the future by developing and integrating new teaching formats based on the so-called e-portfolio method into the degree courses Applied Media and Communication Science, Media and Communication Science and International Business Economics. However, the results are also to be transferred to engineering and science courses and other universities. To this end, he is cooperating with colleagues in biomechatronics and business informatics, as well as the Department of Education at the University of Erfurt.
Tracking your own learning progress
In e-portfolios, students can collect, document and present their digital work results and products, so-called learning artefacts, in the form of texts, images, audio and video files or other digital formats - but also track and reflect on their own learning progress. "Especially in degree courses such as at TU Ilmenau with a high proportion of self-study, research-based and informal learning, the method can encourage students to proceed in a planned manner, work in a structured way and reflect on their own learning progress," says Gunther Kreuzberger: "However, e-portfolios have rarely been used in STEM subjects to date, even though this is precisely where many learning artefacts are created and a multi-perspective approach has been proven to promote learning progress."
As part of the project, Gunther Kreuzberger would therefore like to integrate the e-portfolio method into various study phases: as presentation and reflection portfolios as part of the introduction to the technique of scientific work in orientation studies, as development portfolios in a practical workshop for individual in-depth study and career orientation in project-oriented Bachelor's studies and as career portfolios for the targeted individual support of students before the transition from a Master's degree to a career. Kreuzberger sees particular opportunities for the use of immersive social VR technology at this interface: "By encouraging students to develop their e-portfolio as a virtual social space, they not only learn how to implement interactive 3D environments in practice. With a view to their future careers, we also encourage them to develop it further as a career portfolio and to train their media expression skills in the full range of digital media."
In all three study phases, the method is to be further developed so that the teaching innovations can also be used in other disciplines such as mechanical engineering or business informatics. Subsequently, the learning and teaching materials developed will also be made freely available across universities as so-called Open Educational Resources (OER) in cooperation with the university library, among others.
The project "Reflective, transformative learning in social spaces" will start in October 2024 and run until December 2025. The project is being funded with a total of around 50,000 euros.
Contact
Dipl.-Inf. Gunther Kreuzberger
Virtual Worlds and Digital Games Group
+49 3677 69-4660
gunther.kreuzberger@tu-ilmenau.de
