Abstract:

Teaching, in the experimental sciences and engineering practice has an important experimental component, in addition to theoretical teaching. In the laboratory practice theoretical concepts are applied, so that students can see their practical application.
The purpose of this study is to determine the importance of proposing multidisciplinary practices in Industrial Engineering career. Multidisciplinary practices impact positively on the development of learning skills of students.
The methodology must optimize the teaching of physics, allowing to students to relate different subjects of the career. Thus, the student must solve a basic problem, related with different areas of knowledge such as math or science of polymeric materials, among others.
The issue presented to the students in the subject of Industrial Engineering physics refers to determining the statistical behavior of the thickness of a several kinds polymer pellets sample. This is a multidisciplinary work that must use mathematical, physical and polymeric materials knowledge. In this practical work, students recognize and manage different polymeric materials such as polypropylene, polyethylene and polystyrene. The methodology is that each group of students measures the thickness of pellet samples of these materials using a digital micrometer and a manual micrometer, so the student acquires skills in the use of these devices. Then, data must be organized, summarized and analyzed statistically by students to obtain a histogram, that is representative of the real thickness distribution of the pellets. Finally, the students characterize the centralization and dispersion of the obtained distribution by measuring of different characteristics parameters (arithmetic mean, median, mode, standard deviation …). The evaluation of the solutions proposed by different groups of students is done via a form where students respond to the different sections in which is included also the methodology employed.
The analysis results allow us to discuss issues of interest as a working methodology, integration of theory - practice or complexity of the proposal.

Keywords:

Multidisciplinary practices, innovation, groupwork.