Educational Innovation for Teaching and Learning of Chemistry in the Degree of Civil Engineering

Sara García-Salgado,Rosa Dominguéz Gómez,Rosario Torralba Marco

doi:10.13189/ujc.2017.050201

Sara García-Salgado, Rosa Dominguéz Gómez + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.13189/ujc.2017.050201

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Abstract

There is a concern among professionals and teachers of scientific and technological Degrees for the lack of vocations for this type of study. In order to mitigate this problem to some extent, Technical University of Madrid (UPM) and some Educational Innovation Groups, formed by Chemistry teachers, have been worked for some years on the organization of several activities to promote the relation among different educational levels, mainly early High School and University. On the other hand, different teaching materials have been developed in order to encourage the motivation and ease the learning of the basic subjects of the first-year of university studies by the students of UPM, with tools or resources such as Punto de Inicio, OpenCourseWare (OCW), Puesta a Punto, at an institutional level. Furthermore, some Educational Innovation Groups have created audiovisual materials (lab practice videos) and virtual lab practices for the learning of Chemistry, as well as games such as Math-Trivial, Physic-Trivial, Drawing-Trivial and Chemical-Trivial. These tools are available on the Internet, as free access web spaces.

Highlights

The educational innovation group (EIG) ATANI (Acción Tutorial para Alumnos de las Nuevas Ingenierías – Tutorial Action for Students of New Engineering), from the School of Civil Engineering of Technical University of Madrid (UPM), is formed by teachers of Physics and Chemistry, which are subjects of the first course of the Degree in Civil Engineering
From the beginning of the activity of this IEG, and taking advantage of the calls that UPM has published to carry out educational innovation projects, the group members have developed different educational materials, and attended different conferences and workshops, highlighting the importance and interest of basic subjects, especially Chemistry, in engineering studies, especially in Civil Engineering
During the academic courses 2010-11 and 2011-12, several teachers from different IEGs in UPM, developed sixteen videos related to the content of different Chemistry lab practices, in order to use them as a teaching support for theoretical lectures and lab practices of this subject, which is included in the curricula of more than six Degrees of UPM [6]

Summary

Introduction

The educational innovation group (EIG) ATANI (Acción Tutorial para Alumnos de las Nuevas Ingenierías – Tutorial Action for Students of New Engineering), from the School of Civil Engineering of Technical University of Madrid (UPM), is formed by teachers of Physics and Chemistry, which are subjects of the first course of the Degree in Civil Engineering. The strategies, teaching tools and materials developed by the teachers of the subject Chemistry of Materials, included in the curricula of the Degree in Civil Engineering, in the first year, are presented These activities have been carried out during the last seven years of the activity of the EIG ATANI, in order to increase the students’ motivation to learn this subject, as well as to ease the acquisition and leveling of the basic knowledge of this subject, to be able cover more specific topics related to the Civil Engineering area, such as corrosion processes, chemistry of the binders used in construction, environmental pollution, etc

Materials and Methods

Videos of Lab Practices

The Chemistry Experimentation Virtual Lab in UPM

Workshop “Civil Engineering and Infrastructures”

Findings

Conclusions