River Restoration – a new group-centered teaching project

The aim of the Innovedum project was to transform the traditional course «River Restoration» into a project- and problem-based course «River Restoration». In the former course, the technical thread was not fully comprehensible to the students and a consistent didactic concept was missing. The lecture was primarily aimed at the core target group of environmental and civil engineers specializing in hydraulic engineering. The aim of the redesign was also to focus more on interdisciplinary skills. The underlying motivation for this was a survey in private engineering industry in the field of revitalization, which highlighted the greatest «knowledge gap» between the current situation, particularly with regard to a critical approach to problems, the plausibility of results, and working in a team. Another aim was to open the course to a larger target group and thus to better reflect the real-life practical situation of transdisciplinary cooperation. The latter was also the reason for designing the course with a focus on project- and problem-based learning.

The financial support provided by Innovedum enabled a detailed elaboration of the didactic concept, which would otherwise not have been possible. It also covered the initial effort involved in designing a suitable practical project. In addition, detailed feedback from students and lecturers from the first and second year of the course has been incorporated into the course, thus gathering valuable experience.

The motivation for the project was to make the course more attractive for both learners and teachers. The aim was that learning must take place directly in class and through exchanges with coaches and experts, as well as through reflection. The project also offered the lecturer team a great opportunity to try out and evaluate many different didactic methods. At the same time as the technical and didactic changes were being made, the course was also converted from German to English – a conversion that would have been necessary anyway.

The Innovedum project was well thought out on an organizational level during the initial phase and was then implemented as planned in its basic structure. The details of the individual teaching modules, such as the structure of excursions with the help of GIS tools, the structure of coaching sessions or the requirements for the different performance elements in the course, were only planned after the start of the project and within the first semester of implementation (spring semester 2023), with relatively little lead time in each case. On the one hand, this was challenging for the lecturers from a practical point of view, as they had to engage with the new didactic concept from the outset without knowing the exact goals and timetables. Further, they were not familiar with problem-based teaching and learning in a university setting at the project start.

A certain amount of spontaneity was also required from the students (especially in the first year of implementation). At the beginning of the semester, they received a «roadmap» to guide them through the semester and all its modules. In addition to organizational information, this document also contains details on the performance elements, including the terms of delivery. A table shows how much time was planned for which elements of the course (contact time on campus, excursions, independent work / group work, etc.) to make sure to meet the planned 90 working hours for the 3 ECTS credits as closely as possible.

The course is organized via Moodle. In the first year of conduction, regular announcements and documents specifying the content for the following week helped both the students and all external lecturers to follow the lessons better. In the second year of implementation, the flow of information could then be made more measured and structured.

Not least because of this transparency, the first implementation of the course was already a success, judging by the feedback from students and lecturers. In both years of its implementation to date, «River Restoration» has received a great deal of written and oral feedback. The targeted promotion of a culture of feedback and reflection in the course significantly increased the amount and quality of feedback beyond the usual level of a conventional course. This in turn helped greatly to further optimize the course structure for the spring semesters of 2024 and 2025, with the aim of further increasing students’ learning success and motivation.

In retrospect, the project was very successful. However, the extensive structural adjustments made after the first year of implementation based on experiences and feedback from the previous year were surprising. The effort required of the lecturers for such a project-oriented course with innovative didactics was underestimated (about three times more than of a conventional course). Not only the initial efforts in setting up the course should be mentioned, but also the necessary resources for maintaining the quality of teaching, as well as the rediscovery of a practical project in a few years. On the other hand, it was clear to the lecturers from the start that such a course offers an ideal opportunity to inspire students for their future engineering work.
Due to the effort involved, it was and is necessary for the project team to restrict the admission of students to the course. A simple and robust organizational structure of the course is also essential to limit the effort for the project team. In order to maintain not only didactic but also subject-related coherence in a course with numerous lecturers, consistency in the core team is very important. The task of the project team was and is therefore to repeatedly provide explanations, clarifications and contextualizations – both at the subject and interdisciplinary level.

The project team received feedback from the students that the course was indeed time-consuming, but also a lot of fun. The additional time required compared to more traditional courses is therefore gladly invested. Nevertheless, the student workload should be taken into account, especially in view of the increasing competence orientation of teaching within the framework of PAKETH.

Individual core elements of the course can be transferred very well to other courses, even with large numbers of students. For example, the promotion of a feedback culture through a non-hierarchical structure and reflective elements should be mentioned. The peer review of the technical reports has already been adopted in a modified version in the basic internships of the bachelor’s program in physics.

The positive effects of the project on student learning, particularly on motivation, the diverse promotion of skills and transdisciplinary cooperation, were very pronounced. The use of GIS-based tools (OMLETH, ArcGIS Online) during the two excursions promotes independent learning and is exemplary with regard to PAKETH and the individualization of learning. Likewise, not every performance record has to be summative or graded. The stated goal for further projects should be that students complete the assessments based on intrinsic motivation and their own benefit, thus acquiring valuable skills for their future professional life.

• ArcGIS Online Debriefing Viewer