Abstract:

A major educational challenge is to encourage students a ‘will to learn’ within a world saturated with extensive information. To address it, as academic members, our goal is to keep students motivated by using active learning strategies. Educational literature can already certify that lectures set side by side with practicals can usually provide more consolidated and stable knowledge.

In this communication, we present an active learning strategy with students doing workgroup design, simulate and finally create a real product ordered by a foreign petitioner. An international entity that acts as a virtual employer defined initially requirements of the selected product. The use of a foreign petitioner is also an elegant way to promote the use of a second language during the degree. Another key aspect of the proposal is to engage the student in a social experience, orienting the outcomes towards the fulfilment of a community need. In this way, the authors propose the combination of two important methodologies, the project based learning (PBL) and the service based learning (SBL) in the form of small projects so-called microprojects. The strategy, from now on named MicroPSBL (MicroProject and Service Based Learning), mainly includes three important aspects:
(i) assignment with small projects involving new manufacturing technologies;
(ii) development of the microprojects with Do-It-Yourself desktop machines (DIY-DkM); and
(iii) orientation of the microprojects towards a social benefit (SBL) and gaming.

The mechanisms used to add value to our strategy included the integration of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the project, the organization of seminars with experts and a series of visits to local factories. Finally, we also included gaming as a novel approach in the evaluation process to keep students alerted and interested during the semester.

As an example, one of the MicroPSBL applied to the subject ‘Manufacturing Technology’ is herein explained in detail. The academic goal of the addressed MicroPSBL is to build a self-propelled racing car by means of 3D printing. The printed cars compete with each other in a race and in a beauty contest. The social cause of this MicroPSBL is to donate all the cars to low-income children for Christmas. The assessment methodology to evaluate our proposal was based on pre and post-surveys at the beginning and at the end of the course. We corroborated the preliminary findings in previous communications regarding the students' satisfaction reported. The results showed the beneficial impact on undergraduate students by keeping high levels of motivation without the reduction in their success rates. More specifically, essential advantages in the use of DIY-DkM were found regarding significant benefits for the implementation of this kind of PBL strategy.

Keywords:

Motivation, Higher education, Project Based Learning, Service Based Learning, Gaming, Open Source.