Abstract:

This work arises to give response to the urgent need of increasing the student participation and motivation in undergraduate Electrical Engineering courses at the University of Málaga, in Spain. The noticeable decline in participation and motivation, as observed a few years ago, has been further accentuated since the period of virtual teaching due to the COVID-19 emergency. Therefore, it is proposed the creation and implementation of a new collaborative learning approach that is based on the use of short videos, always aiming for higher quality learning, especially in mandatory undergraduate courses. This initiative is part of an Innovation Teaching Project (ITP) involving professors from various areas of knowledge that teach in different Degrees. Through this initiative, we identified a widespread lack of participation and motivation among students across all Degrees.

In the present-day society, students are used to consuming a variety of videos on different online platforms like social media, YouTube, video-on-demand services, and more. Essentially, the new generations are digital natives, having grown up using modern communication methods and tools. They possess unique attitudes towards the learning process specific to their generation. Hence, we propose that students themselves create short video content voluntarily to increase their participation and motivation during lectures, aiming to better their learning experience. At the same time, by generating specific audiovisual content related to the course, students can undoubtably develop and strengthen essential transversal skills such as teamwork, oral communication, and critical and creative thinking.

The experiment involved students from various Degrees and age groups, including those enrolled in different mandatory courses like Circuits Analysis (first year) and Multimedia Information Transmission (third year). Students were tasked with creating approximately five-minute short videos using their creativity and ingenuity and open-access software packages, focusing on course-related content proposed by the professor. The main objective was to explain practical scenarios and solve exercises based on previously acquired course concepts. The videos were showcased in a plenary session, enabling other students to learn from them, and ask questions to resolve doubts and curiosities. Moreover, they could use this as study material. The experiment results revealed a high level of satisfaction with this methodology and high success in achieving the main objective, concluding the grade of maturity and responsibility of involved students present a remarkably impact. The evaluation of this initiative was conducted through two surveys: one before the activity and another upon its completion. In both surveys, the students answered a total of 20 questions related to commitment, organization, learning, effort, among other essential aspects. These results allow us to conclude that the strategic integration of videos as an educational tool in Electrical Engineering Degrees can increase student participation and motivation by providing a more attractive, interactive, and contextually relevant learning experience.

Keywords:

Participation, Motivation, Engagement, Video, Electrical Engineering.