Abstract:

It is important that learning can take place through academic activities that involve or arouse emotion, that are motivating, encourage creativity and can be done from pleasure. One of the many ways to learn by encouraging these aspects involves the use of up-to-date teaching methodologies, such as the use of digital devices and audiovisual formats. Today's university students have generally mastered these technologies upon a daily use of social media. Learning through audiovisual recording is particularly effective and appropriate in Earth Sciences, as many subjects are approached through the observation and visual identification of geological bodies and structures.

Another learning methodology associated with emotion is oral communication. Communicating information orally (the result of an exercise, an investigation, a field observation, etc.) involves an important emotional component, since the communicator, in this case the learner, is heard and seen directly, is placed at the center of his/her own learning and takes responsibility for it.

In recent years, the faculty of Earth Sciences at the University of Barcelona (Spain) has been observing major changes in learning capacity among their students. Firstly, the assimilation of the subject contents of a significant part of the students is often very superficial and conceptually inaccurate. This fact contributes to a poor and ephemeral learning. In addition, difficulties have also been detected in oral expression and communication by students in some presentation exercises. Moreover, during field practices, and especially when there are large groups of students (i.e. more than 20), students' attention lapses very easily, probably due to the multiple distractions that result from leaving the classroom and to the physical fatigue associated with intensive outdoor activities. Finally, in some cases students recycle reports from previous years classmates, and with a minimum effort of adaptation they present them as their own; this translates in a significant lack of knowledge assimilation.

In such a context, we here present a Teaching Innovation Project that aims at improving both the assimilation of contents and the oral communication skills of students. It also aims at facilitating and increasing their attention during fieldwork learning activities, and at encouraging self- and teamwork as learning tools. To this end, a series of academic activities have been designed and prepared based on oral presentations and the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT, e.g. video recording, use of platforms for the creation of interactive images and/or infographics, etc.) to engage students in learning. These activities have been incorporated at different courses of the Geology and Marine Sciences degrees, and of the masters of Reservoir Geology and Geophysics and of Mineral Resources and Geological Hazards. In total, up to 15 subjects held by 19 lecturers and professors at the Earth Sciences UB faculty are involved in the project.

Keywords:

Emotion, Oral communication, Audiovisual recording, Earth Sciences.