Three questions for “People With An Agenda”
"It’s incredible that a virtual whiteboard gets four times as many students to participate … that really motivates me."
Prof. Dr Jürgen Huber
Prof. Dr Jürgen Huber
What innovations in Education are you developing, and what motivates you to do so?
Jürgen Huber: There’s a lot of potential in digitalisation. It’s incredible that a virtual whiteboard gets four times as many students to participate and that a collection of teaching materials can be put together five times as quickly as in face-to-face teaching – that’s what motivates me. However, my colleagues also report a wide range of problems with digital media. They also mention that even before the pandemic, it was challenging to juggle subject content and teaching methods at the same time. Now, on top of that, keeping digital media afloat is extremely exhausting.
Product development principles help me to further develop the ‘digital teaching’ product in a targeted manner. Specifically, we adapt so-called ‘proof-of-concept’ technologies from the television industry – such as green screens and teleprompters – for use in our day-to-day teaching and combine them effectively with advanced teaching principles such as the flipped classroom. Agile methodologies ensure that we always keep the needs of both target groups – students and lecturers – as well as the aim of ‘efficient teaching and learning’ firmly in focus. An interesting insight from practical experience is that entertaining teaching formats are not an end in themselves, but rather help students to acquire knowledge and skills over many hours at a time.
In what way does your innovation help students to become responsible designers of the future?
Jürgen Huber: We are digitising teaching as part of a team comprising lecturers and students; the students automatically become designers in this process. Thanks to real-world experience and immediate feedback, they learn what distinguishes successful design from unsuccessful design, and what it means to act in the best interests of different target groups.
How can other lecturers benefit from your innovation?
Jürgen Huber: Thanks to a great deal of preparatory work and testing behind the scenes, we aim to provide our colleagues with media technology that is fit for purpose. When it comes to the practical implementation, we offer individual support to lecturers in digitising their teaching formats.
Your teaching philosophy at HM in three words:
Shaping the future together.
Prof. Dr Jürgen Huber studied mechanical engineering at TUM and completed his PhD in the field of pressure measurement technology based on light and image processing. After completing his studies, he began developing innovative measurement technology at a start-up in 1998. He has worked in the fields of innovation and product management, as well as systems engineering, at various medium-sized companies. Jürgen Huber has been a professor of product development at HM since 2013.
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