Engineering Final Project Supervised in an Adaptive Way With Moodle Support

Abstract

For the current engineering degrees, it is necessary to design a monitoring process in order to supervise the subject called "Final Degree Project." This method must be able to manage and evaluate the process of completing the project and submitting the documentation. This paper describes the design of an adaptive method and how to put this mechanism into practice using the learning management system Moodle. Adaptivity provides the chance to study different scenarios that can be produced in cooperation with students and their tutors. The conclusions of this paper show a high level of satisfaction with the adaptive method used in the subject.

Assessment of Actual Workload and Student Performance in the Agricultural Engineering Final Degree Project in a Spanish Higher Education Context

“…The FDP is a course that is normally scheduled to be taken in the last semester of the program and that allows students to use and apply the knowledge acquired during the previous years of intensive study in multiple ways [1], e.g., developing particular skills and the ability to engage in various types of thinking [2]. The FDPs have meant an important adaptation effort for the degrees where students were not previously required to perform work of similar nature [3], as opposed to former Spanish engineering degrees, where students had to complete an FDP, normally during the last year of studies and, often, once they had passed the rest of the degree courses [4]. The university degree system established with RD 1393/2007 also incorporated other new features with respect to the previous regulatory framework, such as an improved control of the workload and time students need to complete the different courses and continuous assessment to evaluate the acquisition of competencies by students [5].…”

“…The university degree system established with RD 1393/2007 also incorporated other new features with respect to the previous regulatory framework, such as an improved control of the workload and time students need to complete the different courses and continuous assessment to evaluate the acquisition of competencies by students [5]. In the particular case of the FDP course, it must be taken into account that there are some differences with respect to the rest of the degree courses, such as the absence of scheduled lectures, the existence of one or two academic supervisors who guide the student during the completion of the FDP, and the final assessment, which is done by an evaluation commission formed by university teachers, who are often unaware of the learning process undertaken by the student during the completion of the FDP [4]. These characteristics of the FDP course have promoted the development of technological and methodological tools to facilitate both the management of all the information required by the course [6] and the monitoring [4] and evaluation of the FDP [7,8].…”

“…Although there are some studies in the scientific literature on the improvement of the teaching-learning process in the FDP course, mainly for non-engineering degrees [15][16][17], no works have been found on the assessment of the actual workload and time invested by engineering students to complete their FDP. Esteban-Sánchez et al [4] designed a methodological tool based on the use of a virtual teaching platform to monitor the development of the FDP in engineering degrees, but they did not quantify the actual workload required for students to complete their FDP. Peña et al [18] analyzed whether the academic activities comprising the FDP of building and construction engineering degrees were balanced and adapted for the acquisition of the competencies, but again, their assessment was based on the methodologies used but did not take into account the time and effort required.…”

An adaptive hybrid MOOC model: Disrupting the MOOC concept in higher education

“…This means that it is a challenge where the scope is understood but difficult to achieve. Adaptive systems ( (Brusilovsky, 1996;Berlanga and García-Peñalvo, 2008) or the adaptive functionalities of some LMSs help to adapt learning in any online training, but they are especially necessary for the large, heterogeneous, diverse group of participants enrolled in MOOCs to ensure that their different needs are met (Sein-Echaluce et al, 2011;Esteban-Escaño et al, 2017).…”