Abstract:

University education faces the challenge of moving from the traditional model of master class to a model focused on the learning of its students, so that several universities have incorporated active learning methods in their teaching, methods that give their students the necessary conditions to develop certain competencies in the classroom; however, the effectiveness of these methods is limited by the tradition that allocates most of the class time to transmissive teaching.

The flipped classroom model emerges as a solution because it intentionally transfers out of the classroom some of the information that the teacher must transmit in order to free up class time to dedicate it to the realization of learning activities.

In this context, this model was tested in the Master's Degree in Maintenance Engineering. The experience was developed in the subject “Writing Scientific Articles”, in which the flipped classroom model was applied through the Just in Time Teaching strategy. This course was developed in the remote modality through online sessions and with support of the Moodle platform.

In order for the students to arrive at the class session with an approximate idea of the different topics to be covered, for each topic defined in the syllabus of the subject:
(a) One or two videos were produced that presented the key points of the subject with a duration of seven to twelve minutes).
(b) Two digital documents were prepared, the first with specific information (two to three pages long) and the second an article on the subject to be discussed. This ad hoc material was to be studied before the online session.
(c) A multiple-choice questionnaire was implemented to which the students had to respond synchronously before the online session; the questions were oriented to determine the level of assimilation of the main concepts presented in the videos and readings.

Once the cycle described above was completed, the teacher was in a position to prepare the class sessions in a focused manner, that is, intentionally connecting the contents with the previous understanding that the students had gained from the material provided, clarifying and explaining the key points of the thematic block. Activities of various kinds were also combined, which were carried out with the supervision and / or support of the teacher depending on its complexity.

To collect the students' perception of the implemented methodology, an estimation scale with two dimensions was developed. With regard to the pre-class activity, the group made up of 32 students mostly stated that they carried out the assigned activities, however, they stated that they did not have mastery of the article delivered. In relation to the online session, all participants felt that time was better used because it allowed them to attend class with worked readings and consolidated previous concepts so that the teacher had the time to supervise and provided feedback on key aspects of their individual work.

It is concluded that the application of the flipped classroom model allowed to achieve the main objective of the subject which was the elaboration of a research article, as well as the system of questionnaires implemented throughout the course was constituted a continuous evaluation mechanism that made it possible to assess progress in the writing skills of scientific articles.

Keywords:

Flipped classroom, Postgraduate studies, Writing of Scientific Articles, Just in Time Teaching, Continuous evaluation.