LEARN also contributed to the 16th FH Research Forum of Austrian Universities of Applied Sciences on April 19 and 20 at the FH St. Pölten:

Windows of opportunity

LEARN section head Lisa David acted as chair at a session and brought in the concept of "Windows of Opportunity": within the framework of 5 ECTS, offers for interdisciplinary and international studies should be curricularly anchored in all study programs. This can be done through participation in offers set up at St. Pölten UAS, made possible in the form of student mobility, transdisciplinary work or participation in educational events outside the subject. 

Teaching research

Christian F. Freisleben from LEARN, together with Anita Kidritsch (physiotherapy), designed a poster on the (teaching) research project DIRENE: The aim of the ERASMUS+ funded project is to accompany teachers, students and health service managers in the further development of their digital competences in the field of nursing and rehabilitation. One focus is to support patient-centered pathways in healthcare. DIRENE deliverables include a handbook for educators (including for practicum and continuing education) and a MOOC.

Contributions particularly relevant for higher education didactics

Let's have a look at some contributions that are particularly relevant for the field of higher education didactics:

Nils Mevenkamp (MCI Innsbruck) dealt with online tools for learning and teaching statistics. For this purpose, he developed a tool with which students learn as well as practice to think in terms of "distribution" and "variation". They enter data or estimates into interactive statistics and immediately see if they are correct. "Abstractions need to be experiential, in a way that allows independent and interactive handling of different populations, samples, variables and distributions," Mevenkamp says. Students can also develop challenges for each other to further develop their imaginations, as a variation on the basic principle of "learning by doing" and as an implementation of basic principles of gamification in teaching.

Robert Luh and colleagues from IT Security presented the game "PenQuest," a digital attack and defense game that simulates an attack on an IT infrastructure and ways to defend it. Goals include a) understanding vulnerabilities and threats resulting from attacker behavior b) linking attacks to appropriate security measures; and c) making exploration of this topic as entertaining as possible. At the same time, the aim is to achieve maximum realism so that the game can be used for awareness raising and practical risk assessment.
Philipp Haindl (IT Security) initiated an exchange on ChatGPT and its use in teaching contexts in the form of a World Café. Findings emerged that build well on those of the last LEARN Didactics Café .ChatGPT delivers as output only very limited or not at all results that are innovative or creative. So also the transfer to own experiences is hardly to not given. Even more in demand are competence-oriented and diversely designed examination steps or topics for final theses. In teaching as a whole, the focus must be placed even more intensively on understanding, reflection, abstraction and discussion. At the same time, ChatGPT can be integrated into teaching as a supporting tool. It remains important to critically question and research the delivered results.