Archive: News of Technical University of Darmstadt

Digital teaching at the Institute IWAR

Christiane Brockmann has already been using Moodle exercises, scanned examinations and teaching videos in her chemistry courses and laboratory practicals for prospective environmental engineers for many years. She has gained good experience of these methods in her work at the Institute IWAR in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, which is now helping her in the digital summer semester. In particular, she wants to provide her students with more short films of chemistry experiments and video tutorials on laboratory devices as didactic tools.

TU study examines influences on perceived income justice

Whether people perceive their income as fair is not only important for themselves but also for the labour market. But which factors – environment or genetics – influence the perceived income justice? Professor Michael Neugart and doctoral student Selen Yildirim from the Institute of Public Economics and Economic Policy at the Department of Law and Economics investigated this question. They published the sometimes surprising results of their research in the journal “Economics and Human Biology”.

First digital semester – an experience report

For the first time ever, an entire semester is being run digitally. This is a challenge not only for the lecturers, but also for their students. So how do students cope with this, and what do they want? Where do they see any problems, and what is already working well? A student of sports sciences and Dr. Annette Glathe of the Center for Educational Development and Technology at the TU report on the first experiences.

Inverted Classroom Models for Digital Teaching

Dr. Felicitas Rädel and Professor Jörg Lange teach steel construction at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The two scientists turned their teaching concept upside down in a Master's module back in 2015, when they realised that students wanted more exercises and more intensive exchanges with teachers – instead of 90 minutes of “chalk and talk”.

Creative stopgap solutions at the University and State Library (ULB)

The University and State Library (ULB) continues to offer a basic service to students and researchers during the corona crisis. ULB Director Thomas Stäcker believes that the accelerated digitalisation of processes due to the virus offers an opportunity. The commitment shown by employees has impressed him and many of the ideas and stopgap solutions developed for the digital summer semester will also be suitable for the period after corona. He is certain that the positive experience with mobile working and video conferences will simplify everyday working life and the search for specialist employees in the future.

Virtual courses at the Language Resource Center

The Language Resource Center at TU Darmstadt is now also providing its lessons for German, English and 17 other languages or specialist languages online. The lecturer Karen Fleischhauer explains what assistance and didactic or technical options the rapidly formed e-learning working group is considering for the virtual courses and how the internal communication between the around 90 teachers has also changed.

“The lecture in the auditorium is fleeting”

Josef Wiemeyer is in a class of his own these days. The TU professor of sport science has been working with electronic learning formats for almost 20 years. In the digital summer semester, he can draw on a great treasure trove of materials, tips and experiences that benefit his colleagues as well as his students. He is particularly committed to interactive offers.

ULB Darmstadt uses an innovative disinfection process

The University and State Library Darmstadt is irradiating books with high-energy UV-C light during the corona crisis to kill the virus.

Investigation at TU Darmstadt: Sterilisation process at high temperature recommended

FFP-2 respiratory masks worn by hospital personnel and the emergency services can be used multiple times without any concerns and continue to meet the strictest hygiene standards if they have been sterilised in advance for twenty minutes at 121°C. These are the findings of analyses carried out by TU Darmstadt for the Alice Hospital Darmstadt. The results should help to ease the supply shortages for FFP-2 masks.

E-learning tips by Alexandra Stang

Alexandra Stang gained experience in digitally supported teaching while still a student herself. She has been working at the Centre for Intercultural Competence (ZIKK), which is assigned to the university's language centre, for almost two years. Her tasks include organising an intercultural planning game project seminar on cross-site virtual cooperation in heterogeneous teams and dealing extensively with webinars and student media projects. She offers various useful tips here.

Proof of Concept: Professor Koeppl awarded 150,000 euros grant by the European Research Council

Two scientists at the TU Darmstadt have been awarded a “Proof of Concept” grant of 150,000 euros by the European Research Council (ERC). Professor Heinz Koeppl received the award for his project “LONGSENSE”, Professor Leopoldo Molina-Luna for his project “STARE”.

Models confirm observations

Plants use negative pressure to draw water from the soil. Why the pressure value does not fall below minus 100 bar was previously an unsolved mystery. An interdisciplinary and international research group with the participation of the Technical University of Darmstadt now reports in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that apparently so-called lipid aggregates in the plant saps are responsible for the phenomenon. Simulations and model calculations show how the lipids lead to the formation of expanding cavities that cause the fluid column to break off when the negative pressures become too great.

Proof of Concept: Professor Molina-Luna awarded 150,000 euros grant by the European Research Council

Two scientists at the TU Darmstadt have been awarded a “Proof of Concept” grant of 150,000 euros by the European Research Council (ERC). Professor Leopoldo Molina-Luna received the award for his project “STARE”. We shall be presenting the other recipient of the grant, the “LONGSENSE” project by Professor Heinz Koeppl, in the next few days.

Interview with Professor Koenders

Laboratory experiments are a challenge for digital teaching during the corona crisis. Professor Eddie Koenders from the Institute of Construction and Building Materials and his colleague Professor Uwe Rüppel from the Institute of Numerical Methods and Informatics in Civil Engineering had a brilliant idea in 2019. With the support of student assistants, they programmed and developed a virtual building physics laboratory for students using VR goggles and a smartphone. Their “VR4Teach” project received the Athene Award for Digital Teaching from the Carlo and Karin Giersch Foundation.

Cryptography expert receives the Copernicus Award

Their many years of joint cutting-edge research in the field of cryptography and IT security is honoured with a prestigious award: Sebastian Faust, Professor of Computer Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt, and Professor Dr. Stefan Dziembowski (University of Warsaw) will each receive half of the Copernicus Award 2020 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the Fundacja na rzecz Nauki Polskiej (FNP, Foundation for Polish Science), which is endowed with 200,000 euros.