25 November
Session 5: Hands-on experience: Exploring future skills in engineering education
Several alternative sessions were offered, allowing participants to test and discuss in small groups with teachers and students concrete learning scenarios including new technologies and challenge-based learning
Prof. Dr. Stefan Benke, Dr. Vanessa Mai & Robert Steinbüchel: Mechanical Engineering – Product Engineering and Context (MPEC): Try and find out
(see the respective session on the previous day. Participants had the opportunity to explore the MPEC in more detail)
Prof. Dr. Nadine Zinser-Junghanns, Alessio Murrone, Lena Gramlich & Nadav Welzel: Hybrid traces
In this session, participants explored the use of virtual reality in architecture classes. It was emphasized that students have to learn from the start all relevant and available skills, including traditional drawing and paper modelling. Zinser-Junghanns and her students presented how traditional modelling, AI, and 3D virtual-realities could be used together as an immersive, hybrid learning space. It allowed them to scan paper models, to build models in virtual reality, and through 3D printing, transform digital environments into physical ones. This resulted in inspiring, but occasionally also challenging and confusing experiences. For example, via virtual reality, the students could change their virtual environments, including objects that they had physically designed, but they themselves also became an object in this virtual environment. It provided a new approach towards experiencing spaces. Most participants enjoyed this ludic and experimental session, allowing them to enter a 3D space.
Kerstin Schickendanz: LEGO® Serious Play® for teaching Entrepreneurship
Kerstin Schickendanz demonstrated in this workshop how LEGO can be used in entrepreneurship classes as a tool to become more attentive on oneself and others. All participants built towers with the same small set of Legos, and presented and discuss them with each other. This demonstrated diversity of ideas, knowledge and intentions, and led to an interesting brainstorm on the matter.
The institution uses this approach in different ways with different groups, with students, but also lifelong learners. Serious Play can help learners to explore their creativity and to express themselves in new ways. It was noted as addition to rather than a replacement of more traditional teaching approaches. It was also noted that the Lego sets are relatively costly (though relatively cheap compared to other tech-equipment), also as it needs to be restocked from time to time, as pieces disappear.
Session 6: Getting to know the :metabolon Center for Learning and Research
In the afternoon, participants transferred to the :metabolon Center for Learning and Research in Lindlar, outside of Cologne, where they had a comprehensive guided tour, with presentations and a workshop at the.
The Center is situated in an active landfill site that has been transformed into an innovative space for education, research, and sustainable development. TH Köln partners with public and private organisations. It benefits from using infrastructure and services, and contributes its knowledge and research. In addition, the site is also open to the public, for information on waste management, environment and circular economy. It is unique teaching and research facility, which exists in such form nowhere else in the world.
Participants learned how members of the :metabolon Center for Learning and Research developed forward-thinking concepts for a sustainable circular economy - ranging from waste management and resource recovery to renewable energy and ecological innovation. They discovered that many of these initiatives were carried out in close cooperation with partners from academia, industry, and public institutions, ensuring that the center’s work remained both scientifically rigorous and practically relevant.
Throughout the tour, they were able to see concrete examples of how theoretical knowledge, applied research, and real-world experimentation were brought together to address contemporary environmental challenges. This experience gave them valuable insights into how collaborative, interdisciplinary work can drive regional transformation and support long-term sustainability goals.
It also included a workshop in which participants in small groups analysed pieces of waste, and explored solutions on how they could be reused, recycled or replaced through more ecological solutions.