Abstract:

Educational Innovation is a key element at all educational levels, which implies a change in the teaching-learning process. It has three basic components: the people involved (teachers and students), the knowledge developed and the methodology used.

Given that both the people involved and the knowledge are basically the same year after year, the teachers of the subject "Chemical Engineering" of the 2nd year of the Degree in Chemistry (University of Jaén) decided to carry out an experience of methodological change, in order to promote an increase in students’ meaningful learning and academic results.

In this work, the didactic intervention carried out in the abovementioned subject is described. It has consisted of introducing “flipped learning” as a work methodology in the classroom. This methodology transfers the development of certain learning processes outside the classroom (before face-to-face teaching) and uses the class time, along with the teacher's experience, to facilitate and enhance student participation in active learning through questions, discussions and applied activities that encourage the exploration, articulation, and application of ideas.

Based on this, teachers made videos of the topics of the subject that, once the course began, were distributed to the students through a YouTube Channel especially created for this experience. This way the students could watch each video before the class and, thus, become actively involved in the construction of their own knowledge and get the basis to develop a subsequent active and participatory attitude in the classroom.

The main objectives are:
(a) to achieve a more comprehensive approach to the teaching-learning process by combining direct instruction with constructivist methods;
(b) increase student engagement and involvement with course content;
(c) improve the conceptual understanding of the contents; and
(d) achieve a higher rate of academic success.

Direct observations made during the development of the course have not been very favorable to the methodological change. A large percentage of students have not changed their study and works habits. There is also no apparent improvement in the learning outcomes obtained. For this reason, and in order to analyze and clarify the results obtained after the didactic intervention, a questionnaire that has been passed anonymously and voluntarily to the students has been designed.

Finally, the results obtained are displayed and discussed graphically with the help of various tools.

Keywords:

Educational Innovation, Flipped learning, YouTube tools, Methodological change.