„Inovace výstupů, obsahu a metod bakalářských programů vysokých škol neuniverzitního typu.“ CZ.1.07/2.2.00/ A New Way of Organizing the Teaching and Its Influence on Students‘ Success Johann Haag & Paul Tavolato University of Applied Sciences St.Pölten Department IT Security

Agenda The Teaching Experiment and Why We Did It How We Did It Evaluation – Students‘ Time Management – Students‘ Success Personal Experience

Who Are We? Johann Haag 8 years professional experience Prof. at FH St.Pölten Head of degree programmes BSc and MSC IT Security Lecturing on Computer Networks Paul Tavolato Experience in industry and university Prof. at FH St.Pölten Lecturing on Software Engineering, Malware Analysis, Database Systems Theoretical Computer Science

BSc IT Security – the Study Programme Core areas of study –Computer networks –IT operations –Security technologies –Security management „Integral view on IT security“

Why Did We Change Our Teaching? Dissatisfaction about the students‘ self-study abilities Students study only for exams Students study less than they intend to The battle for the „ressource“ student Every lecturer tries to grab as much of the students‘ time as possible The students study behaviour is mainly exam oriented Planned/estimated workload does not match the real workload Learning outcomes do not always meet the intentions

What Did We Change? Teaching is organized blockwise Every lecture was assigned time calculated from the ECTS points The time for a lecture was subdivided between actual lecturing and self-study Exams are at the end of each block

The Project In 2011/2012 we carried out a pilot project with the first and second semester This pilot project was evaluated scientifically by a team of pedagogics researchers from Hamburg University (R. Schulmeister, C. Metzger) Based on the positive results of the evaluation we have decided to change the teaching in both study courses (BSc and MSc) from this year on 7

Accompanying Measures Pedagogic workshops by external experts for the lecturers Tutoring by an advanced student for students having troubles (missing lectures due to illness etc.) Measuring students‘ workload

Example: Introduction to Computer Networks and Distributed Systems (by J. Haag) 4 weekly hours of lecture, 5 ECTS 5 * 25 = 125 hours workload  3 consecutive weeks 9

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridayWeekend Self study Theory Lab exercise Individual exercise Protocol Lab exercis

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridayWeekend Theory Lab exercise Individual exercise Protocol + Analysis Lab exercise Lab exercise Lab exercise Group exercise

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridayWeekend Exam Theory Lab exercise Study Lab exercise

Evaluation Workload

Math Programming 1 Networks & distrbuted systems Operatin g Systems Windows Operatin g Systems Unix. Law Law Christmas Holydays

Math Programming 1 Networks & distrbuted systems Operating Systems Windo. Operating Systems Unix Law Law

Evaluation Exam Results

Results – Mean Value

Results - Failures

Grades for Introduction to Networks

Grades for Mathematics

Grades for Programming

Lecturers‘ Feedback Over-motivated students Very high commitment of the students Concentration on teaching improves my personal teaching performance Workload (for the teacher) is heavier than before Students’ results are evidently better than before

Students‘ Feedback I never could go back to normal study organisation. Blockwise teaching makes many things so much easier and the knowledge is really consolidated. I think I would not have passed this semester without failed exams otherwise. The workload in Operating Systems was enormous – but an awesome experience The best system I know. You can concentrate on one topic at a time and you really learn a lot. Thumbs up ! Do you want to continue this system?

24 My Personal Experience  I had experience from vocational trainings in companies.  Exercise-oriented subjects such as Programming are easy to transform to the new organization.  More theory-based subjects need a complete didactic restructuring.  You have to be prepared for the whole course on the first day (afterwards there is no more time for it).  You have to change your time management (with regard to work other than teaching, eg research.

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