Benefit of e-learning teaching C-programming and software engineering in a very large mechanical engineering beginners class

This paper presents the gained experience from the introduction of an web-based e-learning platform and the affiliated teaching techniques in a very large class (1400 students) at the Technische Universitát München (TUM). The students are 1st semester bachelor students of mechanical engineering. The focus of the introduction was to give students the opportunity to exercise programming and modeling languages online and to evaluate their usage for future findings about the corresponding learning mechanisms. This paper focusses on the advantages for the lecturer in different phases of the course and gives an overview on the correlation of e-learning and other aspects of the course.