Abstract:

In a previous paper presented also in this conference we have shown that the workshops of the MOODLE platform are an interesting tool to achieve improvements in the teaching-learning process. The tool can be used in different ways, but there is always a problem given as homework for the students, with typically one-week to present a solution.

Once is over the period for the delivery of the students solutions, the MOODLE platform distributes a fixed number of these solutions among those students that have participated in the first stage and a peer-review takes place. This peer-review process is considered by the teaching team to be important for the development of certain skills by the students.

Among the most important skills are the following:
• The students are given the opportunity to see that a correct solution can be achieved for the same problem from different approaches.
• The students have also the chance to see how difficult it can be to understand what the author of a text meant, if is not properly written: The importance of the clearness of the ideas, the use of the correct and precise language, the use of a clear equation with the correct system of units, etc.
• The students can understand the evaluation process that the teacher uses for the evaluation of their own work.

Nevertheless, even when we have been using this teaching-learning tool for an important number of years and in a quite large number of subjects, we have almost always failed to communicate to the students that this peer-review is interesting for them. We have checked the satisfaction of the students through anonimous polls, and found that the students appreciate the first stage of the workshops, but are not satisfied with the time they dedicate to the peer-reviewing.

As a consequence we have presented a new Innovative Education Project, to be carried out through the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years. Through this Project we will explore the use of a few classroom workshops may help to make the students understand the benefits of the peer-review process and obtain a synergistic effect from the use of the two different workshops. In this work we present the first results of this project.

Keywords:

MOODLE, workshops.