Abstract:

Current student learning strategies are based on the use of technology. Therefore, professors should consider using technology to motivate students to learn and develop the required skills so they can successfully achieve satisfactory grades in their enrolled courses.

There are different strategies used in programming courses to develop student learning, being teamwork one of them. This strategy is an attractive method in order to increase average learning in these kinds of courses. However, they also require professor support and tutoring to get a complete and correct programming solution to solve the problems given throughout the course period. Even if team learning can be acquired, this does not guarantee individual learning.

As future employers, students will need to be able to blend into a cooperative corporate culture, where they will need to collaborate with co-workers and among diverse companies, often using a number of both, well-known and new technologies.

This paper introduces a model called Working Together (WT) where collaboration between students is connected with an automatic tutoring platform, providing an extraordinary way for the individual learning through collaborative exercises in programming courses, and it will also encourage students to increase their understanding concerning the subjects covered throughout the course period.

The platform associated with the Working Together (WT) model will provide the student with the possibility to select one (or more) of the parts of the problem to be solved and tested, and with the help of an automatic tutor, the student can acquire guidance to develop learning and therefore, to reach into a correct and complete solution. If each one of the team has their solution, then they could proceed to integrate their parts and obtain the complete and correct problem solution. Working Together (WT) model encourages students to get abilities like creative and innovative thinking, problem-solving, collaborative strategies and professional competencies. It also provides flexibility by allowing students to face, divide and rehearse depending on their ability and knowledge, supporting the collaboration among team members, as well as promoting individual and collective learning.

Keywords:

Automatic tutor, creative thinking, motivation, teamwork.