Graphic Course Design for Engineers

This paper tries to bridge the gap between engineering and education by introducing a new way of how to use existing and well known design techniques of engineering in order to structure teaching. It may be called the engineering approach to educational modeling. Planning a new course or restructuring an existing one can be understood as a system design task. Where the system is the course with some input and output, defined system states, and an internal structure composed of fundamental educational elements such as intentions, themes, methods, media and organizational issues. This “course system” can than be designed according to established educational principles like motivation, structure, demonstration, exercise or evaluation to optimize the “course system quality”. In a first attempt, it will be exemplified how engineers and others can use UML diagrams to design or redesign their courses. Index Terms – Course system, educational elements and principles, educational modeling, graphic course design, UML.