Teaching Concept

Teaching Concept of the Chair of Management and Logistics

Our courses at the TU Darmstadt are a fundamental part of the degree programs "Business Administration/Industrial Engineering", "Business Information Systems" as well as the newly conceived, English-language Master's program "Logistics and Supply Chain Management". Furthermore, our courses also play an important role in the Master’s program “Traffic and Transport”.

Our teaching concept is designed to transfer career-relevant key qualifications (demand on the job market) and prepare for a scientific career (research-related, methodical training). It is essential for us that the students, furthermore to acquiring the knowledge, also:

  • experience the practical relevance of the lecture content,
  • practice and apply the acquired knowledge themselves
  • and equally, be able to test their level of knowledge themselves.

In our Bachelor's and Master's programs, we implement the teaching concept in form of presence lectures, which always include external lectures by company representatives and exercises on the selected subject matter. The presence lectures are supported by an e-learning platform using the online learning platform “moodle”. It includes the provision of lecture materials, which enable asynchronous learning, as well as a lecture-accompanying learning progress control. We would like to give our students an incentive for engaging with the course content during the semester.

As part of the Bachelor's program, we offer the lecture “Management of Value-Added Networks”. In this lecture, we focus on the transport and logistics systems that play an essential role in the global, collaborative economy. Further to this, we offer the course “International Logistics Systems” in the Bachelor's program. We give an insight into the logistical interrelationships of order processing, warehousing, storage, packaging, and transport in the scope of procurement/production/distribution/replacement and disposal logistics. In both courses, the acquired knowledge is applied and deepened in exercises that accompany the lectures.

In the Master's program, our didactic concept consists of combining our lectures with an exercise/practice program. In the sense of research-oriented teaching, modeling and simulation are an integral part of our courses. In the two specializations “Transport Management” and “Logistics Management”, students can also choose from a range of practical courses and exercises (in the module “Logistics and Transport Management in Practice”) in addition to the respective lecture module. The practice-oriented courses focus on the development and discussion of current topics, why we also conduct them in cooperation with external lecturers from companies. Furthermore, we offer modeling and simulation explicitly as a supplementary, third specialization “Simulation of Supply Chains”. Here, by combining a lecture held by an external lecturer, students can apply and test the acquired, practice-relevant knowledge themselves in a specially designed exercise.

In the current COVID-19 situation, all courses are offered “online”. Exceptions to this are the interactive role-play “Communication and Management in Logistics and Transport”, the simulation game “Management of a Supply Chain” (haptic board game with teamwork) as well as the excursion “Logistics Live!”.

Students can continue their individual synchronous/asynchronous learning programs. On the ”moodle" platform, they can find the lecture recordings in the form of audio recordings, as well as the advanced videos and podcasts integrated into the various lectures. In addition to the offer for asynchronous learning, we conduct the introductory session, guest lectures, exercises, and exam preparations as live streams. In the so-called live sessions, the results of the learning progress controls can be discussed in addition to the exercise content. The courses are also supplemented by online mentoring and discussion meetings.