Exemplary concept in the design of online teaching

Teaching award of Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences for Prof. Dr. Susanne Kruse

January 13, 2021

Prof. Dr. Susanne Kruse from the Faculty of Business and Economics was honored with the fourth internal teaching award of the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences - Technology and Economics for her outstanding implementation of the compulsory module Mathematics B for Industrial Engineers as an online format

during the New Year's reception on January 13, 2021.

With a blended learning concept (multi-layered and multi-faceted mediation concept), she handles the heterogeneous prior mathematics knowledge of her groups of more than 150 first- and second-semester students in an exemplary manner. In addition to the online lectures with question sections, it offers, among other things, numerous opportunities for recapitulating the course content with more than 150 short topic videos. In addition, there are many opportunities to practice, e.g. through interactive online exercises with individual feedback, practice sheets, a practice exam and a mock exam. Various opportunities for consultation in direct contact in several online tutorials, a forum on the central learning platform and an online consultation hour are also part of the extensive offer of her course.

"In this way, she creates a motivating and interactive learning atmosphere for her students, promotes individual learning styles among her heterogeneous group of students, and offers everyone a fair chance to achieve the learning goals even in a purely online semester," said Prorector Prof. Dr. Angelika Altmann-Dieses in her laudatory speech on the unanimous decision of the committee, which was made up of students and experts from university didactics as well as digitization in teaching.

The Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences' teaching award has been presented since 2011 to professors who have distinguished themselves to a particular degree through high-quality and innovative teaching. The teaching prize for 2020 was awarded for the first time for the outstanding implementation of concrete online teaching. The prize is endowed with €5,000, which can be used to promote student issues at the university at the free discretion of the award winners.

"But I would also like to accept the teaching award on behalf of all those colleagues who have also invested a lot of time and heart and soul in creating digital teaching concepts. Pure online teaching requires a higher level of commitment on the part of learners and teachers - although personal contact, which cannot be replaced by anything, must of course not be lacking," emphasized Prof. Dr. Susanne Kruse in her video message during the New Year's reception. She then thanked her students, who were actively involved in the event, for their commitment and feedback. They will also benefit from the prize money, which she plans to use to further develop existing teaching formats, for example by creating interactive scripts, and to purchase hardware and software for video production.

About the person

Since March 2015, Prof. Dr. Susanne Kruse has been a professor at the Faculty of Business and Economics, where she represents the teaching area of mathematics. She lectures on mathematical foundations, statistics, operations research, as well as financial mathematics and financial risk management.

She studied at the University of Göttingen.

She studied mathematics with a minor in business administration at the University of Mannheim and received her doctorate in stochastic analysis from the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science there. In the course of her further professional career, she gained experience in risk controlling at a Luxembourg Pfandbrief bank and at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics, from where she was appointed Professor of Derivative Financial Instruments and Quantitative Methods at the Hochschule für Finanzwirtschaft und Management der Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe in Bonn as an expert on derivatives.

She lectured on mathematics, statistics and banking management.