USE OF THE E-LEARNING PLATFORM POLIFORMAT FOR THE EVALUATION OF THE PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGES IN THE LABORATORY PRACTICES: EXPERIENCE IN “ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES OF THE ENVIRONMENT”

In the technical degrees, the practice classes are an important part of the teaching. In these classes the students can see the application of the theoretical concepts and they acquire both attitudinal and procedural competences.

A problem in the practices is that a lot of the students go to the practices without a previous work of reading and revision of the practice manuals, which delays the start of the practice or situations of danger in the case of the laboratory practices that utilize chemical reagents. Hence, it is necessary to search tools to evaluate if the students have the minimal knowledges required for the realization of the practices.

The present work describes the use of tests for the evaluation of the previous knowledges of the students before the laboratory practices using the e-learning platform PoliformaT. The tests permit to evaluate if the students have the necessary knowledge for the realization of the laboratory practices.

The educational innovation proposed has been applied at the courses 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 in the subject of “Analytical Techniques of the Environment (TAM)”, whose teaching is given for the Chemical Engineering and Nuclear Department. This subject corresponds to the Chemical Engineer degree and it is taught in the Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineering in the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

The evaluation of the proposed educational innovation accomplishes intervening opinion polls of students, the scores of the students, and the opinion of the lecturer. Previous tests are an useful tool for the student and the lecturer. From the student perspective, the tests let to know in advance the knowledge both conceptual and procedural level of the laboratory practices, that is, self-evaluation. In addition, from the lecturer perspective, the tests allow the error checking and the possibility to correct them before the realization of laboratory practices.