In higher education, it is usual to separate the theoretical contents from the practical ones and use teacher-centered methodologies. This fact makes students lose motivation due to the lack of connection with real professional tasks. Conversely, student-centered learning methods, such as projectbased learning (PBL) or flipped classroom, aim to integrate both theoretical and practical contents and to apply them on real-world problems, thus increasing the students' motivation and involvement. These methodologies are usually applied in the last years of a degree, but it is difficult to find them in basic first-year subjects. The aim of this paper consists in assessing the application of a PBL methodology in the first-year subjects of computer engineering. This methodological change aims to achieve a significant improvement in the students' learning achievement of the core subject computer fundamentals. The project involved in the PBL proposal consists of developing a portable calculator. The performance of the PBL group is compared with that of other groups with a traditional, teacher-centered learning system. The evolution of the knowledge acquisition is determined by means of an initial evaluation and a final assessment after developing the project. An exhaustive statistical analysis is performed so as to evaluate the PBL application. Quantitative results show a significant improvement in the experimental group marks, which increased by up to 20% compared to the control groups. As a conclusion, applying PBL and flipped classroom engaged students within the subject, thus achieving a deeper understanding of its theoretical concepts.
Gamification has proved to be a methodology that increases the likelihood of success and sustainability of educational institutions. This methodology has recently revealed itself as one of the most efficient teaching methodologies in the student body, proving useful at all educational levels. One of the most frequently mentioned properties is its ability to “reset” the student’s attention clock: the key is collective learning, an attractive way of remembering new content. The experience described below has been developed in the context of a generalist university in two very different degrees: Degree in Teacher Training and Degree in Computer Engineering. To develop the theoretical sessions, the master class was combined with the use of the Kahoot tool. The observations made by the teachers in relation to the dynamics of the theoretical classes show that the use of Kahoot at the end of the theoretical sessions increased the students’ attendance at class, in addition to their involvement in the sessions and they kept their attention for longer. This study has also shown that there are significant differences in the level of satisfaction shown by the students of both degrees with these tools.
Abstract. Nowadays, the different computer tools available enable designers to create complex industrial prototypes. The use of these tools is constrained by the limitations imposed by common devices, like screens and displays. Recently emerged Virtual and Augmented Reality techniques have started being used as supports in many learning and industrial environments. Beyond the new possibilities that these tools offer for designing industrial objects, the underlying question is whether these new technologies could improve the creativity of designers to enable them to get a better understanding of the designing process itself. This paper presents a methodological proposal for the deployment of an industrial design engineering course aimed not only at learning different design techniques, but also at assessing the creativity skills of students. The practical contents include the use of VR devices, to help the designer overcome the limitations of prototype visualization and make better designing decisions. Moreover, a creativity test will be performed at the beginning and at the end of the course to assess the changes in creativity skills, taking place within the experiment group versus the changes in a traditional learning (control) group.
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