Teaching and Learning Culture

Our teaching and didactic methods at the faculty for Process Engineering, Energy and Mechanical Systems are oriented to the goals and aims of the university-wide program “ProfiL²” - Projects for facilitating teaching and learning.

ProfiL² aims to improve academic performance, to provide the best possible education for each respective career, and to lower the drop out rate. The didactic concept at our faculty has its foundation in structuring the degree programs along project-based learning concepts as well as implementing problem-based and research-based learning. This type of teaching and learning has been greatly stepped up in a multitude of ways so that the students are increasingly exposed to activating learning methods. We focus on learning that is oriented towards problem-solving to enable students to experience key fields that they will work in, and that right from the start of their studies. For example, this is done with mandatory interdisciplinary project weeks, which are characterized by team work, among other features. Our educators are facilitators, i.e., we act as guides and activators for the students, to inspire a lasting learning process and to support students in assuming greater personal responsibility for their learning achievement. Thus, educators and students can be treated as partners in the educational process.

The special feature of our didactic concept and our understanding of what constitutes a good teaching culture is the dedicated competence-based and integrated learning-focused culture as well as the high demand-oriented vocational education provided in our degree programs.

Every semester now consists of two blocks of 6-7 weeks that are separated by the project week. The number of credits, which are received upon successfully completing the project work, has risen considerably in the course of revising the curricula. New teaching and learning formats entail new exam formats and thus students become acquainted with a wide range of competence-based examination methods.

The faculty for Process Engineering, Energy and Mechanical Systems participates in the annual university-wide “Excellence in Teaching” initiative, which took place for the fourth time in 2014. In the course of this initiative, which culminates with a day-long event with networking and exchanging ideas on continuing education and teaching, a teaching award is bestowed upon the best teaching idea by the Cologne University of Applied Sciences. Professors from our faculty have received this teaching award for developing and applying innovative activating teaching and learning forms twice, in 2014 and also in 2013.

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