Scipedia: Revista Iberoamericana de Educación en Ingeniería (RIEI)

¿Descanso para hoy o estrés para mañana?: Beneficios y costos de los paros estudiantiles en ingeniería y ciencias

Juan P, Ross — Thu, 02 Jan 2020 22:33:03 +0100

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar los beneficios y costos de los paros estudiantiles según la percepción de los estudiantes de la Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas de la Universidad de Chile. Para esto, se realizó un cuestionario sobre el último paro mayor a cinco semanas vivenciado por los estudiantes. La muestra final consistió en 875 estudiantes, representativos de la Facultad. En particular, este trabajo presenta una categorización a las respuestas de texto libre a la pregunta: ¿Qué impactos positivos y negativos en tu rendimiento y en otros aspectos de tu vida académica y/o personal tuvo la paralización? Mediante un análisis cualitativo, se definieron ocho categorías para los impactos positivos y negativos. Entre las categorías se encuentran aspectos académicos, tales como “Rendimiento académico” y “Ritmo de estudio”, y otros aspectos personales como “Estrés”, “Tiempo para compartir con cercanos” y “Actividades recreativas”. Los estudiantes reportan como mayor beneficio que el paro les da tiempo para descansar y reducir significativamente los niveles de estrés. Por otro lado, el principal impacto negativo es el cambio de ritmo asociado a las paralizaciones y la posterior vuelta a clases. Este estudio muestra un pionero acercamiento a uno de los fenómenos que con recurrencia afectan a los estudiantes de la educación superior chilena.

Teaching structural engineering concepts in a civil engineering course based on a didactic game

Eric Forcael — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 18:23:03 +0100

This research analyzes a methodology of non-traditional teaching, based on a didactic game applied into teaching structural engineering concepts within a Statics course —part of a Civil Engineering program—, in which students performed structural analyses in trusses and their respective support systems, by constructing small structures, to later compare results with structural analyses based on theory. Two groups were conformed, where the control group was taught based on traditional teaching lectures, and the test group, to which a didactic teaching methodology based on the structural game developed in this research was applied. For the analysis of both groups, non-parametrical statistical analyses were conducted, along with a qualitative analysis. The statistical analyses evidenced that the didactic methodology proposed here showed to be more efficient for teaching structural concepts, obtaining a high degree of acceptance from students, according to the qualitative analysis carried out, which would motivate its use in other engineering courses.

Análisis de la percepción de las condiciones ergoambientales de una sala de aprendizaje activo

Diego Yáñez — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 18:16:02 +0100

Contexto: Las Aulas de Aprendizaje Activo son entornos de aprendizaje centrados en el estudiante en los que abunda la tecnología, los cuales favorecen un aprendizaje dinámico y colaborativo. En este sentido, la ergonomía ambiental de estas Aulas, la cual considera factores como el ruido, la iluminación y la temperatura, es fundamental para el logro del bienestar de los individuos en el contexto educativo.

Objetivo: Este estudio busca conocer la percepción que tienen los estudiantes respecto de las condiciones de una Sala de Aprendizaje Activo.

Metodología: Para esto se aplicó una encuesta a 85 estudiantes de Ingeniería Civil Industrial que utilizaron esta sala durante el primer semestre de 2019.

Resultados: Los resultados evidencian una valoración positiva a la iluminación artificial, pero declaran cierta insatisfacción respecto de iluminación natural, asimismo, muestran satisfacción respecto del ruido que afecta a la sala aun cuando manifiestan que la sala carece de un buen sistema de aislación respecto de salas adyacentes. Además, consideran que las condiciones de temperatura y ventilación no son adecuadas. Lo anterior plantea desafíos a futuro en torno a mejorar las condiciones ergoambientales de la sala, además de evaluar el impacto de estas condiciones en el rendimiento del aprendizaje de los estudiantes.

Editorial Volumen 2, 2020: Ingenieros globalizados

Rodrigo F. Herrera — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 13:55:18 +0100

El equipo editorial de la Revista Iberoamericana de Educación en Ingeniería está muy agradecido de su primer año de publicación el año 2019 en donde tuvimos aportación de alto nivel que fueron aceptadas a través de la revisión por pares y luego publicadas en RIEI. Este año 2020 tenemos la meta de comenzar nuestras indexaciones en distintos buscadores, catálogos e índices, por lo que estaremos muy agradecidos de la divulgación de nuestra revista.

Virtual Laboratories as a Strategy for Teaching Improvement in Math Sciences and Engineering in Bolivia

Francisco J. Triveno Vargas — Sun, 10 May 2020 15:38:05 +0200

STEM education is a strategy based on four disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), integrated in an innovative interdisciplinary approach. Although, the concept of STEM education is more relevant today, the discussion of a teaching model with special attention in the four subjects aforementioned began in the early 2000s. Taking into account this context, the strategy presented in this paper has been disseminated in Bolivia's main universities for the last five years. A country that has not yet managed to associate basic disciplines such as calculus, matrix algebra, and/or differential equations to solve problems of an applicative nature, that is, to establish the link between theory and practice. To establish the connection, it is necessary to deduce differential equations associated with practical problems; solve these equations with numerical methods, appeal to the simulation concept to later introduce programming languages like ''Python/VPython'' to build virtual laboratories. The classical problem addressed for this purpose is the satellite of two degrees of freedom.

Developing Students’ Communication in Technical English with Project Based Learning Methodology 1

rocio porras soriano — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 13:25:10 +0100

Technical communication is an extremely important soft skill for civil engineers at the workplace. Due to globalization trends this technical communication often should be performed in English. If we join the fact that undergraduate engineering programs in Spain have been taught exclusively in Spanish, with which in addition, in rare cases those programs provide intentionally placed discipline-specific technical communication experiences, this all amounts to a major problem, regarded as an obstacle that limit undergraduates’ opportunities to work abroad. Aware of this problem, some schools provide their students with a brief course on “Technical English”. However, this course does not cover all the skills that the student would need in the labour market, such as speaking and listening abilities.

This paper promotes an innovative teaching methodology that allows Spanish Civil Engineering students to hone English communication skills through “Lunch&Movies” sessions. In each session a documentary about technical Civil Engineering topics is shown. After the screening, students work in small inter-cohort groups with a guiding lecturer. These groups debate on different questions related to the video, encouraging participation, and fostering their self-confidence to talk about technical English topics in public. Different surveys were developed to demonstrate the students’ interest in learning technical English, and to evaluate the benefit for the attendees and their achievements. The results show that the students are conscious of the importance of technical English for their future careers, and most of them improved their initial level as the sessions progressed and they gained confidence in the foreign language. Also, through a pilot subject in English, it was demonstrated that the participants of the “Lunch&Movies” sessions obtained better oral qualifications than those who did not participate. In fact, the overall results indicated that Lunch & Movie sessions can improve students' technical oral skills as well as their own perceptions of their abilities.