Abstract—Material science is believed to be one of the more complicated subjects for first year students of mechanical engineering because the scientific background is generally not taught at school or during job training. First year students of mechanical and automotive engineering at HTW Berlin are required to take 2 classes in material science with laboratory exercises accompanying the education. Still, basic knowledge upon theory is necessary to work practically during lab sessions and hand out are given to the students. Additionally lecture films show the laborato20thry routine prior to lab hours and show students what they are going to experience and learn. These films were initially inspired by students and conducted during a one term semester project supervised by lecturers and film experts (peer-to-peer approach). It was found that students watching the films were prepared better and gained more knowledge during practical work than those who did not have access to the films. Watching the introductory films lead to more download activity and actual studying of the lectures provided to prepare the experiments and furthermore lead to slightly better testing results.

Index Terms—Blended learning, lecture films, material science, peer to peer.

The author is with HTW Berlin, University of Applied Sciences, Wilhelminenhofstraße 75A, 12459 Berlin, Germany (email: anja.pfennig@htw-berlin.de).

Cite: Anja Pfennig, "Peer-to-Peer Lecture Films in a First Year Laboratory Material Science Course," International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 234-239, 2018.