Abstract:

Traditional education based on master lessons has changed to teaching where the student is the center. That important change at all levels of education has been possible thanks to the development of new teaching and learning techniques or methods such as project-based, case method, gamification, etc.

That study shows a practical example of the implementation of the case method teaching, reducing the load of traditional sessions of master lessons, applied to the subject of Coastal Engineering corresponding to the fourth and last year of the Civil and Territorial Engineering Bachelor Degree at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain). The present manuscript includes the implementation calendar, showing the clear progress of the subject, the description of the cases used, as well as the improvements implemented, the strengths and weaknesses identified both in the methodology and in the specific cases, etc.

The cases used are selected based on the following criteria:
1) topics of complete relevance in maritime and coastal engineering, where it is possible for future graduates to be involved in their professional development;
2) multiple solutions, an approach to which many engineering students have to be prepared;
3) need to look for available information on the Internet so the students can work with it as if they were already professionals involved in a real project;
4) need to use creativity and imagination; and 5) working as a team because that transversal competence is essential for students to be good professionals.

The case studies carried out during the implementation of the plan of giving more importance to case method teaching in this subject include:
1) design of promenades;
2) delimitation studies of the Maritime-Terrestrial Public Domain,
3) analysis of the effect of sargassum in the Caribbean;
4) study of the problem of different storms on the coast, etc.

The definition of these cases is a great contribution since they can be used in other maritime engineering subjects. In addition, the planning of how it has been implemented and the lessons learned are of great value for any subject.

Keywords:

Case study method, maritime engineering, coastal engineering, creativity, teamworking.