Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 573 de 957
• Physical description of the system. They should be able to observe simple or
complex systems and to name and describe them macroscopically and
microscopically.
• Qualitative observation of the system. Being able to observe changes in these
systems due to changing conditions (temperature, pressure, humidity,
composition, time…) and describe its evolution.
• Quantitative analysis of the system. Quantifying the change of system properties
by measuring macroscopic parameters under the circumstances described in the
previous section.
• Creation of a model of behaviour. Setting an equation to predict the behaviour of
the system under different conditions.
• Correlation of the model. Finally, the most important aspect is to verify the initial
hypothesis, and to check whether it is met or not and why. The correctness of the
hypothesis is not relevant as long as the students are able to give a good
interpretation of the phenomena.
To promote crucial transversal skills such as cooperative learning and interactive
engagement between classmates (Bejarano et al., 1997), students were divided up into
smaller groups of two or three people. The reason for giving a flexible range of groupings
was because they had regular classmates to work with in a group, thus problems resulting
from unfamiliarity with partners during cooperative learning were reduced to a minimum.
Each group was led by a particular supervisor (doctoral researchers and undergraduate
teaching assistants) who helped them by solving doubts that may occur during the
progress of their projects and also to prevent potentially dangerous or inappropriate
experiments.
Before setting up the project, students were encouraged to search for information from
the internet and to consult the bibliography provided by the teacher as there are a large
amount of websites from publishers, educational institutions and other sources that
include very valuable interactive formats that support a variety of learning styles and
topics.
After their research, pupils submitted an initial report defining the proposed experiment,
and performed an oral presentation to their classmates, not only to avoid similar projects
but also to acquire effective communication skills.
Then, they conducted their experiments, collected data, and interpreted results by
themselves. In all these activities students were recommended to follow the main aspects
of the scientific practice: asking questions, setting hypotheses, design experiments,
identify and control variables, collect and interpret their data.
In the final stage of the activity students submitted a final report and presented their
findings to class. After their speech, their classmates were encouraged to ask questions
about items and issues from the projects on display, being the consistency and originality
of these questions another parameter which could mark the activity.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011