EVALUATION BASED LEARNING APPLIED TO FINAL YEAR DEGREE PROJECT IN CIVIL ENGINEERING – USE OF GAMIFICATION TOOLS

The new educational system proposed by the European Higher Education Area, implies a novel approach oriented towards fostering lifelong learning. The incorporation of advanced educational resources improves the teaching experience and provides the students with the necessary skills to establish the core of their professional profile. The goal of this project is to use technology to highlight the potential value of the Final Year Project (FYP) in the acquirement process of specific skills. An interactive project database is proposed to be used as source of data for the evaluation of the outcomes. In parallel, sustainability skills are introduced through gamification tools in order to extend motivation and involvement of students. The project is carried out in the School of Civil Engineering of the UPM and funding by such organization.

Higher education institutions have the responsibility to train professionals within the respect to the environment and sustainability. Consequently, teaching in Civil Engineering should involve the students to the commitment of rationalizing the use of raw materials and environmental impact, to provide products and services that improve the quality of the environment and help build more responsible organizations with the society. FYP is an excellent tool for acquiring these capabilities.

When carrying out their FYPs in Civil Engineering, the students face the challenge of simultaneously putting into practice all the knowledge acquired during their undergraduate period along with their communication skills. As an attempt to contextualize the outcome acquisition process during realization the FYP, we present here the Project-Teca, an interactive project database in which a set of FYPs have been classified and systematically cataloged. Performed projects are usually out-of-print and it is difficult to find accurate information about them. This resource enables the use of performed project as a teaching resource and reference material for students.

Gamification tools are based on objective learning and represent one of the latest trends in education. Although the use of these tools for the evaluation of acquisition of competences in other formative stages has given excellent results, its application in the final year degree, such as FYP, is still a challenge with great advantages to explore. In this project, gamification tools are designed to involve the students in the achievement of the acquisition of sustainability and environmental protect skills. Given the multidisciplinary nature of sustainability, the performance of specific training activities in this field that are carried out outside the school, such as attending talks on the subject and conducting training courses (MOOCs) is recognized and rewarded.

All these actions have improved the tutorship between the students and their project coordinators, providing valuable information on the FYP students concerns and the outcomes acquired.