Learning by Teaching: Professional Skills and New Technologies for University Education

Abstract

Besides technical skills, industry increasingly demands professional skills. Teaching these at university is challenging and still rare. In computer science, new technologies and relevant tools emerge quickly. Keeping curricula up to date is challenging. We present a teaching methodology that teaches students the art of teaching. Students learn how to communicate technical content efficiently in lecture, self-learning, and teamwork settings. Students work with constructive alignment and active listening. In addition, they learn how to assess self-learning training materials systematically, and how to give constructive feedback. Finally, they access a technical topic from a new dimension by practically teaching it. During the course, the students train the described skills under guidance by developing new exercises. The article presents our course unit that teaches important professional skills and produces a continuous stream of new teaching material, which is integrated into class. The unit enables teaching relevant and new technologies early. The presented methodology has been continuously applied at the Technical University of Munich since 2013. Through 2019, more than 150 students have participated. More than 60 new exercises were created. A structured evaluation shows the power of the approach.