Abstract:

Some of the innovative educational practices that are currently carried out in universities around the world began to be developed at the beginning of the 20th century. The development of projects, as well as the development of problem-solving, were derived from the pragmatic philosophy that states that concepts are understood through observable consequences and that learning implies direct contact with things.

Knowledge and application of the contents of discipline, to solve practical problems or develop change projects for society, is useful learning for students.

This paper presents a project-based learning experience with students of Simulation course of a university-level Computer Science degree. This didactic strategy is a set of learning experiences that involve students in complex and real-world projects through which they develop and apply skills and knowledge. In this way, learning is more linked to the world outside the university, which allows it to acquire knowledge in a non-fragmented or isolated manner. When working with projects, the student learns to investigate using the techniques of the discipline, leading to the application of this knowledge to other situations.

The experience was carried out with the theme "Simulation with Systems Dynamics", and had as Goals: That the student develops skills related to academics, life and the world of work; plan a strategy to achieve the particular goals of the project and get involved with the problems of the community by providing possible solutions while learning about the issues related to Continuous Simulation with Systems Dynamics.

In the formulation of the project, the duration of the experience that was 3 months, the necessary resources (technological and bibliographic), the expected results, the guide questions, the learning activities and the expected products at the beginning, half and at the end of the project were defined. The instructional support that the students would receive was also specified, which had two modalities: in face-to-face classes according to a pre-established schedule and through the forum of the virtual classroom. Finally, the Project Evaluation Plan was also specified, which covered the following types of evaluations: Performance-based evaluation, Results-based evaluation, and Peer evaluation report. For each case, evaluation criteria, rating scale and the conditions of approval were specified.

The pedagogical proposal was implemented during the second semester of the year 2018, with a total of 15 students.

The evaluation of the experience was made based on the results obtained in terms of student learning and employing an online survey, to know student’s opinions about the project itself, the evaluation instances and the learning achieved. The results showed that the experience was highly satisfactory, since 69% of the students rated the project as "excellent" and "satisfactory", 76% of the students rated the evaluation instances as "excellent" and "satisfactory" and 88% of the students rated the learning results achieved between "excellent" and "satisfactory". Although, 60% of the students obtained a final grade Very Good, 27% of Good and only 13% failed to pass the project.

Keywords:

Project-based learning, Computer Science Simulation, System Dynamics.