The Complexity of Engineering Education in a Mission Driven PBL University

In this extended abstract, we will argue that education in a mission driven university holds particularities that call for the transformation of not only the research base of education but also the way in which education is conceptualised and practiced. Following a PBL approach, we put the students in the centre of educational activity and propose a conceptual framework for engineering education in a mission driven PBL university.<br/

Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) tools to improve computational thinking skills

The common and easy access to technological devices has led to the rapid inclusion of technology into the learning process. The development of technical skills, as well as the increasing confidence in computer attitudes, seems to be obvious. We therefore propose to go beyond and advocate the use of TEL to provide specific leadership, multi-tasking and other organizational skills, known as computational thinking, as precisely the main contributions provided by TEL. To support this hypothesis, we present two different experiences. The first, based on high-school students, to introduce young people to technology at the same time as they acquire other demanding skills. The second, with undergraduate Computer Science students, is focused on technology itself to enhance and improve computational thinking skills. A comparison is also made between two populations with different digital profiles in their user skills (general in the first case and engineering biased in the second).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Active Methodologies for the Promotion of Mathematical Learning

In recent years, the methodologies of teaching have been in a process of transition. Multiple active methodologies have proliferated, with the aim of changing the concept we have had of teaching so far. These advocate for a student who plays a leading role in the process of building learning, while the teacher acts as a figure who facilitates and glimpses the paths to learning. In order to be able to carry out this type of teaching in an optimal way, it is necessary for the teaching and research community to be correctly trained in its pedagogical principles and in the tools that boost its implementation. Among these principles and tools, it is of vital importance that information and communication technologies (ICT) be adequately handled. The use of active methodologies (project-based learning, problem-based learning, service learning, flipped classroom, mobile learning, etc.) or innovative pedagogical approaches (simulation, role-playing, gamification, etc.) promotes an improvement in the motivation of students as well as their skills. This aspect is especially important in the area of mathematics, whose contents are characterized by their abstraction, thus highlighting the need for its dynamization in classrooms of different educational stages