XR Integration into higher education using digital shadows and digital twins

In literature, technical aspects of Extended Reality (XR) teaching tools and their evaluation or implementation are frequently described. However, there is a lack of organized descriptions of structured approaches that would enable inexperienced instructors to integrate XR teaching tools into their courses. Specifically, there is a dearth of materials for independently acquiring the necessary knowledge. In this paper, we present an approach for guidelines to integrate XR into teaching in engineering subjects, developed as part of our research project. These guidelines explicitly address the needs of inexperienced instructors. Through an exemplary implementation of a teaching artifact, which we already use in our courses in bachelor degree study courses for mechanical engineering as well as industrial engineering, we demonstrate how concepts such as "Digital Twin" and "Digital Shadow" can be utilized to augment learning artefacts with XR. We expect that these concepts, which are gaining increasing recognition in engineering, will facilitate the adoption of XR.