Heterogeneous IT Knowledge of Students: the Didactic Approach how to meet it in the Interdisciplinary Course Program Intelligent Transport Systems

Abstract

At the University of Applied Sciences (UAS) Technikum Wien, Intelligent Transport System is a highly interdisciplinary Bachelor's degree program. Its curriculum covers several mainly technical oriented disciplines. Especially the IT courses account for the high drop-out rate of the course program. Students come with different IT knowledge depending on the one hand on their previous school education and on the other hand depending on their personal interest in IT topics. Normally, for students, IT is not the number one reason for choosing this program. Nevertheless, IT is extremely important as it interacts with all other disciplines. Especially the heterogeneity of the IT knowledge made it necessary to rethink the way of teaching. The paper describes the new didactic approach of the IT courses in the course program Intelligent Transport Systems. The new approach faces the students' difficulties and tries to overcome the varying pre-knowledge of students. Furthermore, it tries to increase students' motivation by paying particular attention to the students' assumed interests.

Keywords

• Heterogeneous Knowledge
• It Teaching
• Interdisciplinary