The social changes that have taken place in recent decades have determined the evolution of the educational system. Society
nowadays demands new learning methods, focused on an appropriate selection and processing of information instead of
memorization. The rise of the Information Technologies has led to different ‘‘Emergent Pedagogies’’. One of them is
Informal Learning, which proposes shifting the generation and acquisition of knowledge from the individual to the
collective plane.
The present research expects to raise K-12 students’ interest in engineering by adopting some methods that are typical of
informal learning in the field of formal learning. The objective is to stimulate the group learning processes for the
generation of collective knowledge through multidisciplinary team interaction and dialogue. For this purpose, a group of
25 K-12 students organized in subgroups carried out a co-creative project. This project consists in the development of a
sculptural assembly made of glazed ceramics over a steel structure, which will be installed in the educational centre. A
concurrent project methodology was used to create the sculptural assembly. Here, each student must perform different
tasks related to design engineering. An educational model based on Blended Learning was used, which proposes the
combination of in-person sessions with virtual work by means of social networks as a group communication medium.
Thus, each creative team member contributed with their own Personal Learning Environment in order to enrich the group
learning process and provide it with their own personal singularities, thereby turning it into a Personal Learning Network.
The experience allowed K-12 students to discover the working process typical of design engineering through a
recreational methodology based on Informal Learning. The students were able to make up for their shortcomings in
terms of technical and creative skill, while becoming aware of their chances within the field of engineering. The project has
been shown to be an incentive for K-12 students regarding their interest in starting engineering studies once they finish their
K-12 stageAuthors want to acknowledge the Universitat
Jaume I, and its P1.1B2015-30 funds that have enabled the
successful development of this work. This work has been conducted
as part of the research project ‘‘El arte y el disen˜o en la
nueva sociedad digital’’ (code P1.1B2015-30) funded by the
Jaume I University (Spain), which focuses on how synergies
between several disciplines enable new ways of enrich the process
of creating new products
