Abstract:

The curriculum of the degree in Building Engineering encloses three compulsory subjects concerning to Building Structures. The subject of Building Structures is taught in the third year of the degree and, because its complexity, is one of the subjects with lower success among the students of those of the three subjects commented above. The syllabus of Building Structures II includes the main aspects of the concrete and steel structures: design, analysis and verifications based on the current codes in Spain. It is a 15-week course with 4 hours of class per week divided in blocks of two hours. Both concrete and steel structures are taught separately in a block and with a different teacher.

The teaching of Building Structures II has been traditionally done based on theoretical and practical intermingled. The theoretical part was dedicated to explain the especial aspects of the materials and their behaviour, while during the practical sessions some numerical problems were solved on the blackboard. The subject was marked according to the results obtained in an exam.

During the academic year 2018-19, the subject has been completed with the introduction of a practical work solved by the students. It consisted of the calculation of the structure of a simple dwelling two times: using reinforced concrete and steel as the construction material. To this end, the students are organized in groups of four or five people, and must work along the 15 weeks of the subject since some practical where they work with the only guidance of the teacher are inserted among the standard classes. The content of the work is the design, pre-dimensioning and verification in Ultimate and Service Limit State of the structure as it were constructed with both materials. The theoretical lessons have been reorder to be chronologically adapted to the development of the practical work.

To correctly address the practical work, the students have to assimilate the content of the subject taught during the theoretical classes, matching the problem solved by the teacher on the blackboard with a real problem in the context of a real structure. This supposed an improvement in the subject learning since the students must do a higher effort than simply copy and memorize those contents taught by the teachers. The comparison of the results of the subjects in terms of marks obtained by the students before and after the introduction of the practical work is the main goal of this paper.

Keywords:

Building Structures, Degree in building Engineering, Concrete and Steel Structures.