New Methodology for Integrating Teams into Multidisciplinary Project Based Learning

This paper describes the collaboration among students and professors in four different subjects, to develop multidisciplinary projects. The objective is to simulate the conditions in a company environment. A new methodology based on student interaction and content development in a Wiki environment has been developed. The collaborative server created an ‘out of the classroom’ discussion forum for students of different subjects, and allowed them to compile a ‘project work’ portfolio. Students and professors participated with enthusiasm, due to the correct well-distributed work and the easiness of use of the selected platform in which only an internet connected computer is needed to create and to discuss the multidisciplinary projects. Quality of developed projects has been dramatically improved due to integration of results provided from the different teams.

Games based learning for Exploring Cultural Conflict

In this paper we discuss the early stage design of MIXER, a technology enhance educational application focused at supporting children in learning about cultural conflict, achieved through the use of a game with an effective embodied AI agent. MIXER is being developed re-using existing technology applied to a different context and purpose with the aim of creating an educational and enjoyable experience for 9-11 year olds. This paper outlines MIXER’s underpinning technology and theory. It presents early stage design and development, highlighting current research directions.

Project-based learning experience on Data Structures course

This paper presents the innovations in the practical work of the Data Structures subject carried out in the last five years, including a transition period and a first year of implantation of the European Higher Education Area. The practical coursework is inspired by a project-based methodology and from 2008/2009 additional laboratory sessions are included in the subject schedule. We will present the academic results and ratios of the mentioned time period which imply a significant improvement on students' performance.

Problem-based learning supported by semantic techniques

Problem-based learning has been applied over the last three decades to a diverse range of learning environments. In this educational approach, different problems are posed to the learners so that they can develop different solutions while learning about the problem domain. When applied to conceptual modelling, and particularly to Qualitative Reasoning, the solutions to problems are models that represent the behaviour of a dynamic system. The learner?s task then is to bridge the gap between their initial model, as their first attempt to represent the system, and the target models that provide solutions to that problem. We propose the use of semantic technologies and resources to help in bridging that gap by providing links to terminology and formal definitions, and matching techniques to allow learners to benefit from existing models.

Measuring the influence of Cooperative Learning and Project Based Learning on problem solvin skill.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects obtained after applying two active learning methodologies (cooperative learning and project based learning) to the achievement of the competence problem solving. This study was carried out at the Technical University of Madrid, where these methodologies were applied to two Operating Systems courses. The first hypothesis tested was whether the implementation of active learning methodologies favours the achievement of ?problem solving?. The second hypothesis was focused on testing if students with higher rates in problem solving competence obtain better results in their academic performance. The results indicated that active learning methodologies do not produce any significant change in the generic competence ?problem solving? during the period analysed. Concerning this, we consider that students should work with these methodologies for a longer period, besides having a specific training. Nevertheless, a close correlation between problem solving self appraisal and academic performance has been detected.

Project based learning activities as a means of adapting conventional curricula to the demands of the 21st century aeronautical engineer: The design and building of the EYEFLY 1.

In this paper we report the process of designing and building the EYEFLY 1, a real UAS platform which has just performed its maiden flight. For the development of this aircraft, 30 groups of students from successive years at the Escuela Universitaria de Ingeniería Técnica Aeronáutica (EUITA) of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) carried out their compulsory End of Degree Project as a coordinated Project Based learning activity. Our conclusions clearly indicate that Project Based Learning activities can provide a valid complement to more conventional, theoretically-based, teaching methods. The combination of both approaches will allow us to maintain traditional but well-tested methods for providing our students with a sound knowledge of fundamental engineering disciplines and, at the same time, to introduce our students to exciting and relevant engineering situations and sceneries where social and business skills, such as communication skills, team-working or decision-taking, can be put into practice.

Supporting the design and development of Project Based Learning courses.

The use of Project Based Learning has spread widely over the last decades, not only throughout countries but also among disciplines. One of the most significant characteristics of this methodology is the use of ill-structured problems as central activity during the course, which represents an important difficulty for both teachers and students. This work presents a model, supported by a tool, focused on helping teachers and students in Project Based Learning, overcoming these difficulties. Firstly, teachers are guided in designing the project following the main principles of this methodology. Once the project has been specified at the desired level of depth, the same tool helps students to finish the project specification and organize the implementation. Collaborative work among different users is allowed in both phases. This tool has been satisfactorily tested designing two real projects used in Computer Engineering and Software Engineering degrees.

An interactive web-based learning assistant for structural analysis of continuous beams

There are significant levels of concern about the relevance and the difficulty of learning some issues on Strength of Materials and Structural Analysis. Most students of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis in Civil Engineering usually point out some key learning aspects as especially difficult for acquiring specific skills. These key concepts entail comprehension difficulties but ease access and applicability to structural analysis in more advanced subjects. Likewise, some elusive but basic structural concepts, such as flexibility, stiffness or influence lines, are paramount for developing further skills required for advanced structural design: tall buildings, arch-type structures as well as bridges. As new curricular itineraries are currently being implemented, it appears appropriate to devise a repository of interactive web-based applications for training in those basic concepts. That will hopefully train the student to understand the complexity of such concepts, to develop intuitive knowledge on actual structural response and to improve their preparation for exams. In this work, a web-based learning assistant system for influence lines on continuous beams is presented. It consists of a collection of interactive user-friendly applications accessible via Web. It is performed in both Spanish and English languages. Rather than a “black box” system, the procedure involves open interaction with the student, who can simulate and virtually envisage the structural response. Thus, the student is enabled to set the geometric, topologic and mechanic layout of a continuous beam and to change or shift the loading and the support conditions. Simultaneously, the changes in the beam response prompt on the screen, so that the effects of the several issues involved in structural analysis become apparent. The system is performed through a set of web pages which encompasses interactive exercises and problems, written in JavaScript under JQuery and DyGraphs frameworks, given that their efficiency and graphic capabilities are renowned. Students can freely boost their self-study on this subject in order to face their exams more confidently. Besides, this collection is expected to be added to the "Virtual Lab of Continuum Mechanics" of the UPM, launched in 2013 (http://serviciosgate.upm.es/laboratoriosvirtuales/laboratorios/medios-continuos-en-construcci%C3%B3n)

Enhancing web-based learning resources with quizzes through an Authoring Tool and an Audience Response System

Quizzes are among the most widely used resources in web-based education due to their many benefits. However, educators need suitable authoring tools that can be used to create reusable quizzes and to enhance existing materials with them. On the other hand, if teachers use Audience Response Systems (ARSs) they can get instant feedback from their students and thereby enhance their instruction. This paper presents an online authoring tool for creating reusable quizzes and enhancing existing learning resources with them, and a web-based ARS that enables teachers to launch the created quizzes and get instant feedback from the class. Both the authoring tool and the ARS were evaluated. The evaluation of the authoring tool showed that educators can effectively enhance existing learning resources in an easy way by creating and adding quizzes using that tool. Besides, the different factors that assure the reusability of the created quizzes are also exposed. Finally, the evaluation of the developed ARS showed an excellent acceptance of the system by teachers and students, and also it indicated that teachers found the system easy to set up and use in their classrooms.

A Semantic Approach to Problem-Based Learning with Conceptual Models

El aprendizaje basado en problemas se lleva aplicando con éxito durante las últimas tres décadas en un amplio rango de entornos de aprendizaje. Este enfoque educacional consiste en proponer problemas a los estudiantes de forma que puedan aprender sobre un dominio particular mediante el desarrollo de soluciones a dichos problemas. Si esto se aplica al modelado de conocimiento, y en particular al basado en Razonamiento Cualitativo, las soluciones a los problemas pasan a ser modelos que representan el compotamiento del sistema dinámico propuesto. Por lo tanto, la tarea del estudiante en este caso es acercar su modelo inicial (su primer intento de representar el sistema) a los modelos objetivo que proporcionan soluciones al problema, a la vez que adquieren conocimiento sobre el dominio durante el proceso. En esta tesis proponemos KaiSem, un método que usa tecnologías y recursos semánticos para guiar a los estudiantes durante el proceso de modelado, ayudándoles a adquirir tanto conocimiento como sea posible sin la directa supervisión de un profesor. Dado que tanto estudiantes como profesores crean sus modelos de forma independiente, estos tendrán diferentes terminologías y estructuras, dando lugar a un conjunto de modelos altamente heterogéneo. Para lidiar con tal heterogeneidad, proporcionamos una técnica de anclaje semántico para determinar, de forma automática, enlaces entre la terminología libre usada por los estudiantes y algunos vocabularios disponibles en la Web de Datos, facilitando con ello la interoperabilidad y posterior alineación de modelos. Por último, proporcionamos una técnica de feedback semántico para comparar los modelos ya alineados y generar feedback basado en las posibles discrepancias entre ellos. Este feedback es comunicado en forma de sugerencias individualizadas que el estudiante puede utilizar para acercar su modelo a los modelos objetivos en cuanto a su terminología y estructura se refiere. ABSTRACT Problem-based learning has been successfully applied over the last three decades to a diverse range of learning environments. This educational approach consists of posing problems to learners, so they can learn about a particular domain by developing solutions to them. When applied to conceptual modeling, and particularly to Qualitative Reasoning, the solutions to problems are models that represent the behavior of a dynamic system. Therefore, the learner's task is to move from their initial model, as their first attempt to represent the system, to the target models that provide solutions to that problem while acquiring domain knowledge in the process. In this thesis we propose KaiSem, a method for using semantic technologies and resources to scaffold the modeling process, helping the learners to acquire as much domain knowledge as possible without direct supervision from the teacher. Since learners and experts create their models independently, these will have different terminologies and structure, giving rise to a pool of models highly heterogeneous. To deal with such heterogeneity, we provide a semantic grounding technique to automatically determine links between the unrestricted terminology used by learners and some online vocabularies of the Web of Data, thus facilitating the interoperability and later alignment of the models. Lastly, we provide a semantic-based feedback technique to compare the aligned models and generate feedback based on the possible discrepancies. This feedback is communicated in the form of individualized suggestions, which can be used by the learner to bring their model closer in terminology and structure to the target models.

Virtual Excursions: a new way to explore science in class

The educational platform Virtual Science Hub (ViSH) has been developed as part of the GLOBAL excursion European project. ViSH (http://vishub.org/) is a portal where teachers and scientist interact to create virtual excursions to science infrastructures. The main motivation behind the project was to connect teachers - and in consequence their students - to scientific institutions and their wide amount of infrastructures and resources they are working with. Thus the idea of a hub was born that would allow the two worlds of scientists and teachers to connect and to innovate science teaching. The core of the ViSH?s concept design is based on virtual excursions, which allow for a number of pedagogical models to be applied. According to our internal definition a virtual excursion is a tour through some digital context by teachers and pupils on a given topic that is attractive and has an educational purpose. Inquiry-based learning, project-based and problem-based learning are the most prominent approaches that a virtual excursion may serve. The domain specific resources and scientific infrastructures currently available on the ViSH are focusing on life sciences, nano-technology, biotechnology, grid and volunteer computing. The virtual excursion approach allows an easy combination of these resources into interdisciplinary teaching scenarios. In addition, social networking features support the users in collaborating and communicating in relation to these excursions and thus create a community of interest for innovative science teaching. The design and development phases were performed following a participatory design approach. An important aspect in this process was to create design partnerships amongst all actors involved, researchers, developers, infrastructure providers, teachers, social scientists, and pedagogical experts early in the project. A joint sense of ownership was created and important changes during the conceptual phase were implemented in the ViSH due to early user feedback. Technology-wise the ViSH is based on the latest web technologies in order to make it cross-platform compatible so that it works on several operative systems such as Windows, Mac or Linux and multi-device accessible, such as desktop, tablet and mobile devices. The platform has been developed in HTML5, the latest standard for web development, assuring that it can run on any modern browser. In addition to social networking features a core element on the ViSH is the virtual excursions editor. It is a web tool that allows teachers and scientists to create rich mash-ups of learning resources provided by the e-Infrastructures (i.e. remote laboratories and live webcams). These rich mash-ups can be presented in either slides or flashcards format. Taking advantage of the web architecture supported, additional powerful components have been integrated like a recommendation engine to provide personalized suggestions about educational content or interesting users and a videoconference tool to enhance real-time collaboration like MashMeTV (http://www.mashme.tv/).

Competence Monitoring in Project Teams by using Web based portfolio management systems

This paper reports a learning experience related to the acquisition of project management competences. Students from three different universities and backgrounds, cooperate in a common project that drives the learning-teaching process. Previous related works on this initiative have already evaluated the goodness of this multidisciplinary, project-based learning approach in the context of a new educative paradigm. Yet the innovative experience has allowed the authors to define a rubric in order to measure specific competences in project management. The study shows the rubric’s main aspects as well as competence acquisition evaluation alternatives, based in the metrics defined. Key indicators and specific reports obtained from data base fields in the web tool will support this work. As a result, new competences can be assessed, such ones like teamwork, problem solving, communication and leadership. Final goal is to provide an overall competence map to the students at the same time they improve their skills.

How Blended Learning Reduce Underachievement in Higher Education: An Experience in Teaching Computer Sciences.

This paper presents a blended learning approach and a study evaluating instruction in a software engineering-related course unit as part of an undergraduate engineering degree program in computing. In the past, the course unit had a lecture-based format. In view of student underachievement and the high course unit dropout rate, a distance-learning system was deployed, where students were allowed to choose between a distance-learning approach driven by a moderate constructivist instructional model or a blended-learning approach. The results of this experience are presented, with the aim of showing the effectiveness of the teaching/learning system deployed compared to the lecture-based system previously in place. The grades earned by students under the new system, following the distance-learning and blended-learning courses, are compared statistically to the grades attained in earlier years in the traditional face-to-face classroom (lecture-based) learning.

Training project management complexity in postgraduate and continuing education programs: a learning strategy in the eshe (European Space of Higher Education) framework

The objective of this paper is to address the methodological process of a teaching strategy for training project management complexity in postgraduate programs. The proposal is made up of different methods —intuitive, comparative, deductive, case study, problem-solving Project-Based Learning— and different activities inside and outside the classroom. This integration of methods motivated the current use of the concept of “learning strategy”. The strategy has two phases: firstly, the integration of the competences —technical, behavioral and contextual—in real projects; and secondly, the learning activity was oriented in upper level of knowledge, the evaluating the complexity for projects management in real situations. Both the competences in the learning strategy and the Project Complexity Evaluation are based on the ICB of IPMA. The learning strategy is applied in an international Postgraduate Program —Erasmus Mundus Master of Science— with the participation of five Universities of the European Union. This master program is fruit of a cooperative experience from one Educative Innovation Group of the UPM -GIE-Project-, two Research Groups of the UPM and the collaboration with other external agents to the university. Some reflections on the experience and the main success factors in the learning strategy were presented in the paper

Training project management complexity in postgraduate and continuing education programs: a learning strategy in the eshe (European Space of Higher Education) framework

The objective of this paper is to address the methodological process of a teaching strategy for training project management complexity in postgraduate programs. The proposal is made up of different methods —intuitive, comparative, deductive, case study, problem-solving Project-Based Learning— and different activities inside and outside the classroom. This integration of methods motivated the current use of the concept of ―learning strategy‖. The strategy has two phases: firstly, the integration of the competences —technical, behavioral and contextual—in real projects; and secondly, the learning activity was oriented in upper level of knowledge, the evaluating the complexity for projects management in real situations. Both the competences in the learning strategy and the Project Complexity Evaluation are based on the ICB of IPMA. The learning strategy is applied in an international Postgraduate Program —Erasmus Mundus Master of Science— with the participation of five Universities of the European Union. This master program is fruit of a cooperative experience from one Educative Innovation Group of the UPM -GIE-Project-, two Research Groups of the UPM and the collaboration with other external agents to the university. Some reflections on the experience and the main success factors in the learning strategy were presented in the paper.