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Kathrin Thiele, Gabriela Bender
Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, Hochschule Braunschweig/Wolfenbüttel, Germany
Students often attend lectures unprepared. That is why they don’t notice the lack of understanding the subject. Also the lecturer can’t distinguish between real problems and just bad preparation. Students have therefore problems in following the topics building up on previous ones. This leads to serious and difficult to close knowledge gaps.
It makes it important to recognize such gaps in an early stage, so they can still be closed. Therefore e-learning tools can be used in a formative way for students and lecturers. In the classic way they are used to help student to identify understanding problems. But the results are also helpful for the lecturer for the preparation of the following lecture. He/She gets an overview of the progress of the course and the content can be based on the understanding level of the students. The tools can also be used to transfer parts of the learning outside of the class room.
Using these methods, the students take an active part in the lecture and improve their understanding. The authors use these methods on a regular basis during their courses and wish to share their experiences, including first evaluation results.