Abstract:

Today's society raises the need to modify the formative processes going from traditional pedagogy (teacher-centered) to a pedagogy of action (student-centered). Being the "Cooperative Learning" a pedagogical model that places the student as the protagonist of his learning, at the National University of San Augustin de Arequipa (Peru), it was decided to train professors of engineering careers in the use of cooperative techniques.

The experience, with 27 teachers, was carried out under the b-learning modality.

Two forms of participation were designed:
(a) Six face-to-face sessions of a theoretical-practical nature, the first five to develop each of the programmed units and the last to present the end-of-workshop work, and
(b) non-face-to -face sessions of asynchronous nature, with individual and cooperative activities supported by the virtual classroom.

In the development of the units, the master class was combined with cooperative activities; for this, techniques relevant to the subject and to the characteristics of the participants were selected. The goal was to show how an adequate combination of both allows to dynamize the training process making it more motivating and interactive.

The virtual classroom, implemented on the Moodle platform, served as support for the training process. In addition, it allowed participants to show that the combination of active methodologies with the proper use of the virtual classroom facilitates the teaching-learning process and promotes the development of social and professional skills.

Intermediate tasks and final work were carried out, which were evaluated through rubrics and checklists. The final work was the design of an inclusive activity of the contents of a subject; activity that should be cooperative in nature and relate theory to practice or the real world.

To gather the perception and suggestions of teachers, in relation to the training received, a questionnaire with 4 dimensions was used:
(a) pedagogical content,
(b) communication,
(c) virtual classroom, and
(d) workshop evaluation.

At the end of the training, 15 teachers (55%) presented the final inclusive work; four of them achieved an outstanding level. They were recommended to implement it in the following academic period and prepare a results report.

It is concluded that participatory methodologies, such as cooperative learning promote teamwork, motivation and skills.

Keywords:

Cooperative learning, participatory methods, continuous teacher training, b-learning.