Abstract:

Subject named Construction III is taught in senior year of Architecture degree at Polytechnic University of Valencia. In this subject students should develop necessary skills for determining dosage of concrete. The methodology has changed from master class to case study method.

By using this new methodology, students acquire necessary skills to determine dosage of concrete: identification and characteristics of components, and their relationship with final concrete strength, the optimal dosage designed by analytical methods and computer program, analyzing and comparing the results.

First of all, students fix special environment concrete conditions. Then they obtain dosage of concrete with analytic design and have to correct with software programs. Next, students make and test specimens of concrete. Finally, the results obtained are compared with designed results.
In conclusion, the multitude of concepts related to dosage of concrete is better assimilated with using this methodology; it becomes clearer than learning with master class. This is reflected on surveys which show an increasing of students’ satisfaction level. In addition, the average mark of this subject’s section has increased significantly over mark obtained with master class.

Keywords:

Case study method, dosage of concrete, skills learning.