TEACHING TEXTILE TECHNOLOGIES FOR NON-TEXTILE ENGINEERS

In the Faculty of Engineering and Mathematics of Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, a new module "Textile Technologies" was started two years ago. Offered for all study directions in the faculty as well as for the students from the Faculty of Design, the module has to be based on blended learning due to the impossibility to find a time in which all interested students could join a lecture or a seminar. Lectures are thus presented in the usual form for those who have time to listen; the other students find the learning material in their Ilias group in the intranet. Instead of meeting at strictly defined times for seminars or practical courses, the students form groups during the first two weeks of the semester and find a research topic of their interest on which they work regularly during the semester, mostly in the lab, but also partly at home. The exam is correspondingly conducted in the form of "project work", opposite to written or oral examination. Although most of the students never hear the lectures "live", the projects are usually successful, with several of them resulting in reviewed papers or posters presented during conferences. Especially the broad range of interdisciplinary skills and topics leads to completely new ideas and solutions for diverse problems. Working together with designers, biotechnologists, mechanical engineers, industrial engineers, students of regenerative energies, mechatronics, and other study directions enables covering a wide area of textile-related subjects. In this way, the students not only learn a lot about textile technologies, but also get an insight into scientific methods.