Nina Dahlmann

Challenge diversity: New curricula in Natural Sciences, Computer Science and Engineering

Despite extensive social changes and intensive political efforts to establish equal opportunities, women are still a minority in the fields of natural sciences and technology studies, as well as in the related professional fields. At the same time, technologically oriented studies are not per se less interesting for women, but their motivation, specific interests, learning styles, goals and demands often vary significantly from those of men. The rather broad interests of women often are directly opposed by a unilateral, outdated, techno-centric learning-/training program, which is not only unattractive to women (and an increasingly high number of men), but also bypasses the actual demands of modern education and the job market. The complexity of global markets, social reference, economical objectives and ecological limits call for integrated thought and action, which has to be mirrored in interdisciplinary approaches. A change within the curricula towards a support of non-technological basics and social skills would thus not only support the interests of women and men but also follow the demands of economy. The Galilea project, located at the Berlin University of Technology, is developing several models of co-educative, gender-sensitive model-courses within the three areas: natural sciences, computer sciences and engineering.

Gender gap in technological disciplines: Societal causes and consequences

Despite extensive social changes and intensive political efforts to establish equal opportunities, women are still a minority in the fields of natural sciences and engineering both at universities and in the related professional fields. This low ratio leads to severe consequences both for women and society.

The Teutates-Project: Tablet-PCs in Modern Physics Education

The overall objective of the TEUTATES approach is to implement a flexible mobile learning concept for a modern physics education at universities, focusing on enhanced access to a broad variety of experiments. Within a blended learning concept, Tablet-PCs allow an extended experimental part of the education right from the beginning. Different types of experiments – remote and virtual – are introduced. Executed within web-interfaces, experiments can be implemented and accessed regardless of the location of the laboratory and the experimenter. Additionally, experiments can be performed which otherwise would not be accessible for reasons of expense, security, or availability.