Abstract:

This work exposes a strategy to enhance and encourage self-learning in university students. We propose interactive learning materials provided as supplementary resources for master and tutorial classes. Student absence and lack of participation during classes lead to academic failure. Students struggle with class participation because they fear saying the wrong answer or they don’t think they have anything valuable to contribute either they are unprepared or they fear public speaking. Through the educational video, students can learn at home to achieve the skills to face the problems and questions of the course with a full comprehension of the theory. The flipped classroom is an ideal methodology that fits perfectly into helping them to exceed this difficulty and increase student motivation.

We include, in different subjects of Physics and Engineering Degrees, interactive videos to encourage self-learning with questionaries focused on the main learning difficulties to address each issue of the program. These videos may be visualized before the class so that they acquire a first sight of the theory that is going to be explained this day or as a support of news examples facilitating consolidation and revision. In addition, this methodology will allow students to consolidate other transversal competencies such as improving skills learned in class, and applying them practically to handle practical tests to overcome the final exam successfully. If the answer is correct, the video goes on to the next question, otherwise, the video goes back so that the wrong answers signal misunderstanding and misconception.

To ensure that students view the videos, they must answer a first questionnaire on a distance learning platform such as Moodle as part of their continuous assessment.

Interactive resources are an essential technique in any subject to reinforce teaching because the student sees them as a playful element and not as work. Gamification is a teaching methodology that uses this type of training strategy. A second questionnaire that is filled out based on the results of typical mistakes, will allow the teacher to measure the degree of learning of the student and will encourage the use of these videos. Our preliminary results confirm that the use of both methodologies together increases student motivation and improves their training leading to a significant reduction in failure rate.

Keywords:

Interactive videos, flipped classroom, self-learning, gamification.