Going virtual: Teaching practical skills of circuit design and programming for heterogeneous groups online

Gruenewald, A.; Giesser, C.; Buechner, S.; Gibas, C.; Brueck, R.

Extraordinary times demand innovative ideas and solutions - in this way many lecturers and teacher had to think in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global shutdown of schools and universities. Courses had to be transformed into an online format, which can be rather difficult depending on the original course structure, especially regarding practical elements. The practical university course 'Basics in Computer Sciences' is taught to a heterogeneous group of students from different disciplinary backgrounds such as Medical Technology, Biomedical Engineering and Public Health. Main topics include the basics of circuit technology, programming and modern design patterns. In this paper, we want to present a non-traditional approach to transfer our lab course into a digital format using elements such as the Tinkercad platform, teleconsultation hours and email support. The thorough evaluation shows that the transformation, which is based on extensive research regarding the theoretical background on distance teaching, was highly successful, and recommendations for similar approaches are given at the end of the paper. © 2021 IEEE.