DIGITAL LIBRARY
EVALUATING ACTIVE LEARNING METHODOLOGIES IN A COMPUTER ENGINEERING PROGRAM
1 Universidade Positivo (BRAZIL)
2 Universidade Federal do Paraná (BRAZIL)
About this paper:
Appears in: INTED2018 Proceedings
Publication year: 2018
Pages: 8408-8414
ISBN: 978-84-697-9480-7
ISSN: 2340-1079
doi: 10.21125/inted.2018.2036
Conference name: 12th International Technology, Education and Development Conference
Dates: 5-7 March, 2018
Location: Valencia, Spain
Abstract:
We are heading for a new era in education, with the association between fully disseminated teaching methodologies and the so-called active learning. Moreover, there is a growing interest in the changing profile of higher education students. The use of teaching methodologies in which the student takes on a more active role in the learning process may lead to an increased academic performance. However, are those methods efficient in more theoretical courses in which high levels of abstraction are required?

In this study, we investigated the effect of active learning methodologies (Just-in-Time Teaching, Peer Instruction, and Project-Based Learning) in courses of the Computer Engineering Program. We evaluated the academic performance, the students’ evasion and the pass/fail mean of 48 students distributed into Control group and Experimental group.

Preliminary results showed that 91% of students in the Experimental group rated the methodologies positively. They had a better performance when compared both to themselves in previous bimesters (up to 3 points) and to the control group (mean performance increased by 0.7 points).
Keywords:
Active learning, just-in-time, peer instruction, problem-based learning, computer engineering.