Promotion of teaching innovation

The advantages of flipped classrooms are well known. It makes learning more effective and sustainable. It also offers the opportunity to adapt the learning speed individually, as the subject areas can be worked on independently and at your own pace using the materials provided. This reduces the pressure and enables a deeper examination of the material.

In addition, the time spent in class can be used much more effectively to practise transfer by solving cases. Another advantage of the flipped classroom approach is that it encourages learners to take responsibility and work independently. They are actively involved in their learning process and take responsibility for preparing the lesson. This strengthens their ability to organize themselves, a key competence for lifelong learning.

This is also the disadvantage, as students often do not want to or cannot take the time to prepare the subject sufficiently. A lack of motivation or self-organization can lead to them coming to the attendance phase unprepared, which can hinder the entire learning process.

Younger or less experienced students in particular can be overwhelmed by this personal responsibility of self-study. Without support, some students do not develop effective strategies to deal with the content.

Therefore, the innovative concept envisaged is a combination of face-to-face teaching and flipped classroom. This uses the best of both worlds. It promotes individualized learning and creates space for transfer and consolidation without completely abandoning traditional structures.

The method is flexible, as content that is possible through individual preparation can be outsourced, while at the beginning and complex legal topics can be specifically introduced in frontal teaching. This makes it possible to control the learning process in a targeted manner and ensures that challenging content can be worked through in an accompanied manner.

Another advantage lies in the combination of different learning styles. While face-to-face teaching offers structured input, independent learners benefit from the flipped classroom approach, which gives them the opportunity to work on content independently. This appeals to different types of learners and makes lessons more varied overall.

Another important aspect is the reduction of excessive demands. Students who have difficulties with personal responsibility or the digital tools receive additional support in face-to-face lessons. This ensures that no one is left behind and all learners benefit from a balanced mix of self-study and guided lessons. Overall, this concept creates a balance between structure and personal responsibility that is conducive to learning and improves learning success in the long term.

The integration of short videos from expert interviews into the "Sales Logistics" course is an innovative method to increase the practical relevance and application orientation of the content. Compared to traditional teaching methods, such as lectures or excursions, these videos offer the following advantages:

• Diversity of perspectives: By interviewing 3-4 experts from different companies, versatile and practice-relevant insights are created. The presentation of different views on the same topics enables differentiated reflection.
• Sustainable resource: The short videos can be reused over several years, which creates high added value for the course in the long term.
• Flexibility of use: Videos can be used either in the preparation phase (self-study) or in the classroom. They can be used as a basis for discussion, especially for controversial or complex topics.
• Efficiency: In contrast to guest lectures or excursions, which are time-consuming to organize, videos make it easy to integrate practical knowledge into the curriculum.

The innovative use of this method adds a sustainable and flexible component to the course, giving students a deeper insight into the practice of distribution logistics.

The project expands teaching methods in the field of business analytics through the practical integration of market-leading analytics tools and realistic case studies. Students learn how to carry out complex data analyses with the latest software programs, derive practice-oriented solutions and present these professionally to external business partners. The teaching innovation combines theory and practice, strengthens self-directed learning and promotes interdisciplinary problem-solving approaches.

Abstract topics such as numerical mathematics require students to be highly motivated to learn. To increase motivation and provide continuous learning feedback during the semester, the Adaptive Learning Platform will offer weekly sets of tasks to accompany lectures via the OTH Regensburg ELO platform. The theoretical content of advanced engineering mathematics is thus trained in a practice-oriented manner and abstract concepts are adapted to practical examples. Students develop their own simulations and visualize their results. They receive immediate feedback, which enables them to progress to the next level of difficulty or repeat tasks until they succeed. This adaptive learning environment promotes early and individual engagement with the material, reduces exam anxiety and facilitates the early identification of strengths and weaknesses. The integration of the results as a bonus in the grading motivates students, increases the pass rate and reduces the drop-out rate. The project also strengthens student loyalty to the OTH and promotes sustainable learning.

The planned project differs from previous teaching approaches in the following ways:

• Game-based teaching of reinforcement learning (RL): Instead of theoretical lectures or simplified games, as often found in literature and practice (see https://gymnasium.farama.org/ for typical teaching and research games), a practice-oriented multi-player game will be developed. This challenges students to become creative, to deal in depth with the development of complex RL algorithms and to test them in cooperative or competitive scenarios.
• Multi-level game: To be suitable for both beginner and advanced courses, the game offers different levels so that the challenge can be adapted as students progress.
• Integration of multi-agent systems: The game features scenarios with multiple agents interacting both with and against each other. Such complex simulations are rarely accessible in teaching.
• Competition between students: The theme of the game, a heist, offers the opportunity to hold competitions among students. Here too, different learning progress can be taken into account: Stage 1: Which team manages to rob the treasure first without being caught. Level 2: Student teams of robbers and security guards play against each other.
• Perspective: practical relevance: In-house development makes it possible to develop the game further as required. This allows scenarios to be created that can be transferred to real problems in areas such as production optimization or personnel planning in industry.

The idea of the project is to develop lecture experiments that are additionally visualized and evaluated with the help of a wireless microcontroller unit via a laptop and projector. The microcontroller sits in a housing with various sensors, display and battery. The sensors are read out and the sensor data is sent to a laptop via Bluetooth. This data is processed in the laptop and sent and displayed on a projector. Within the project, the microcontroller is programmed in the C/C++ language and a Windows program in the Python language. In addition, various sensors must be integrated and mechanical parts developed for lecture experiments. The microcontroller units can be purchased, programmed and distributed to interested lecturers at OTH Regensburg with very little effort. The aim is to make the software as intuitive as possible in order to provide uncomplicated support for many lecturers in lecture experiments.