Abstract:

One of the biggest challenges that Higher Education faces in this fourth industrial revolution is responding to the need of updating and improving the skills and abilities of an increasing number of people throughout their lives. It is more necessary than ever to develop teaching and learning methodologies and strategies that help students learn to learn with the aim of knowing and managing their own learning process, in order to achieve an increasingly effective and autonomous learning.

In this context, this paper presents the results of the teaching innovation project carried out in the subject Calculus II of the Degree in Mathematical Engineering of the Francisco de Vitoria University. The primary goal of this research is assessing if the development of effective thinking facilitates the student’s awareness of their learning process. At the same time, it will allow the students to develop new ways of thinking when addressing quantitative subjects.

In a cross-sectional way and throughout the full course, the different levels of the five elements of effective thinking are worked through practical classes, workshop activities and exercises. These five elements are: understanding in depth, making mistakes, asking questions, following the flow of ideas and action. In addition to that, a reflection on what they have learned is made after the evaluation activities.

It is expected that the results and conclusions of this research will help to improve the proposed methodology and help other teachers to implement it.

Keywords:

Learning to learn, effective thinking, learning and teaching methodologies, mathematics.