Andreas Reinhardt, the head of Innovation Management at the Educational Development and Technology (LET) unit, in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), visited UBC this summer.
Reinhardt graduated from the institute in 2000 with a degree in environmental sciences. Later, he completed a teaching certificate in biology at ETH, which inspired his interest in teaching and technology. Since 2010, Reinhardt has been heading LET’s effort towards a holistic approach to addressing technological, pedagogical and strategic challenges in teaching at ETH.
He is part of a tradition of ETH alumni that have come back to the institute after graduation to work, including Albert Einstein who studied at ETH in the late 1890s and returned in 1912 to teach theoretical physics.
Reinhardt visited UBC on a two-month sabbatical supported by ETH. He believes there are a lot of similarities between what CTLT and LET are doing. “The approach is a little bit different but the values are the same,” he said in an interview.
We spoke with him about the interesting projects being developed by his unit at ETH, among them the EduApp, a mobile and web application that helps students manage everyday university life.
CTLT: Can you tell us about the EduApp?
Andreas Reinhardt (AR): The EduApp came out of a student competition that we did. There was always this idea of having an app connecting people and letting them be able to react to situations in class. We thought about an app that is of immediate value to a student, to find their classrooms, to have their schedules on there. Now we can use it for different purposes.
It will be on the phones of the students if students see it as having more value. Once it’s there, then it can be used for educational purposes. So the whole clicker idea came in. We could combine the schedule aspect, wayfinding aspect—where is my next lecture—and merge it with the clicker and other interactivity features that we have on there too.
CTLT: What are some of the other educational features on the EduApp?
AR: There’s the student semester feedback. It’s totally led by students so they can set up a poll or a series of questions and ask their peers about that, and gather feedback and data about what’s going on. Then one student representative can use this data to have a discussion with the instructor. The idea behind this is to have instant improvement possibilities during the semester. It’s the easiest way to do it because it’s mobile and it’s there and it has the right level of formality to it. It’s the official EduApp, supported officially and centrally.
CTLT: How many people are using the EduApp?
AR: We have about 18,000 students. Nearly 6,000 [are] active students on it right now. All 16 departments use it. We have 120 courses that use it.
CTLT: How was the app developed?
AR: We did the prototyping with our people. We set it up, but then we thought, “We don’t have the capacity to do it in-house,” so we got a company to do it for us. Then we built it and saw that it’s working too, we said, “It should be sustainable so how can we do it?” It should be managed in-house and [we should] pay [companies] every time for updates.
CTLT: Can other universities use this app?
AR: We had different universities asking, “Can we use that?” We can certainly help them out but the hurdles are a little bit higher for other universities to adapt. We are certainly interested in exchanging ideas about how other universities use apps for their students, but the system is not like you can take the code and apply it. There’s a lot of the interface that’s very specific to ETH.
CTLT: Another project you’ve been working on is the Student House. Can you tell us what it is?
AR: [The Student House] is going to be ready in 2018. It’s right in the core of the campus in Zurich. The idea is that there are free spaces like a thinker space, a making space and a connect space. These spaces overlap and these spaces can be separated, but when they overlap cool things can happen.
We’re now deciding what these spaces should look like. What should this making space look like? Do we have to have heavy tools there, or is it more like lighter tools? It should be flexible. It’s all about giving students the opportunity to work on projects that they are really passionate about and are not directly related to their academic development or to their studies.
There will be some basic mentorship. We are thinking more about an extracurricular structure so faculty can be involved, but they don’t have to be.
CTLT: What will you take back to ETH from your time at UBC?
AR: I’m still thinking about the ways ETH and UBC could collaborate on teaching and learning.
The DIY approach you have with doing media—that’ something we are very interested in. There’s an opportunity for cooperating, collaborating. For example, if there’s a course on blended learning going on, and we have maybe a similar course running at the same time, then we can bring these two cohorts together and let them learn from each other.
This article was published in Volume 3, Issue 5 of the CTLT Newsletter, Dialogues. Below is a list of articles included in the issue:
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EduApp: An Interview with Andreas Reinhardt (currently viewing)
