COMPARING THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE PILLS

Knowledge pills are learning objects employed in a few cases to reinforce the classroom teaching. In other cases, knowledge pills are available for distance teaching. Different subjects can use knowledge pills like teaching tools.

In a Mechanical Engineering degree, theoretical and practical subjects exist. “Introduction to the business management” is a subject taught in the first course of the degree in the Defense University Center at the Spanish Naval Academy, and its contents are principally theoretical. Mechanism and Machine Theory is taught at the second course and it has a principally practical content. In the first subject, it is necessary to explain concepts and their relationships; while in the second subject, it is very important to know some concepts and solve practical exercises with them. In both cases, the requirements for learning are also different. In this work, the characteristics and used tools in the two types of knowledge pills are explained: one for developing theoretical contents and another for learning methods for solve practical exercises. Since students have the main responsibility in their learning process, it would be appropriated to know their opinion about the use of these knowledge pills. These answers can be analysed and compared. For this reason, an inquiry is made to the students and the results will be discussed. The inquiry asked about the satisfaction rate using the knowledge pills in the both subjects, the pros and cons observed by the students and the aspects to improve.