Abstract:

We proposed as an educational innovation implemented in recent years, the modification of the way in which students usually carry out collaborative presentations in humanities courses at the Tec de Monterrey. Throughout the experience gained as a professor for nearly 18 years, it has been identified that the use of applications like PowerPoint and similar ones does not significantly contribute to the reinforcement of the contents of humanities courses at the mentioned university, when it comes to working and presenting collaboratively. Therefore, a strategy is proposed based on the application of artistic and/or playful activities in collaborative presentation work, which allow for a better understanding and strengthening of the content of humanities courses at the mentioned institution.

The fundamental change consists of replacing the usual presentations, which consist of oral presentations assisted by the use of PowerPoint and similar tools (Canva, Genially, Prezzi, etc.), with a different type of collaborative presentation work, in which dynamics involving artistic and/or playful activities are included, so that this allows for a better understanding and assurance of the content by the students in humanities courses. To determine the effectiveness of the above, a study was conducted during the semester of August - December 2023 in four different humanities courses, in which 80 students from various majors and semesters (first to fifth) at the Tec de Monterrey, Campus Puebla, participated.

The results yielded significant data between the before and after the intervention, that is, the application of artistic and/or playful dynamics when collaboratively presenting a specific topic and content within the curriculum of the subject. These results showed that there was indeed a better understanding of the content when engaging in collaborative presentation activities with an artistic and/or playful nature (e.g. Board game, theatrical performances and so on).

We can conclude that this pedagogy is successful, as both quantitatively and qualitatively, it was proven that such strategies work and result in a better understanding of the content in humanities courses. In summary, what we propose is the substitution of tools like PowerPoint or similar ones, with activities of an artistic or playful nature that embody certain predetermined content of the humanities courses at university teaching. Thereby promoting creativity, collaborative work, communication skills, decision-making discussions, critical analysis, synthesis, as well as the development of student social interaction.

Lastly, this educational experience represents an alternative to the monopoly that AI (Artificial Intelligence) has represented for the elaboration of academic tasks or evidence, as it forces students to rely on their creativity and thus diversifies the options for deliverables to be evaluated by the university professors.

Keywords:

Educational innovation, higher education, collaborative pedagogy, artistic activities, playful activities.