Abstract:

The teaching of the subject “Fundamentals of materials science and technology” for geologic engineers, showed clear deficiencies of the classical methodology for the teaching at the Spanish university.
The subject is divided in three different parts, parts that are not independent. First of all the theory, then the practical part, consisting in numerical problem solving and practical experimentation in the laboratory, and finally the preparation and presentation of a individual work of any topic they choose, related to the construction materials.
Several deficiencies were noted on the teaching-learning process, in all the parts of the subject, excepting in the laboratory. All the activities related to the practise in the laboratory were closed, in the sense that there is not much need of previous knowledge, and the calculations, and the conclusions are worked with the teacher inside the laboratory. The rest of the activities showed important difficulties for the students, mainly due to the historical way of teaching. The magisterial lesson with no interaction with the students has been showed to be not efficient with nowadays students. The students, in the best case, just take some notes during the class, both theory and problem solving, and they do not work more on the subject until some days before the exam. This leads to non significant learning and causes difficulties during the subject, because the concepts are related ones to the others.
Trying to solve these problems some methodologies were changed. First of all the numerical problems had to be solved by the students themselves, and one of them had to explain the solution given inside the classroom. This forced the students to study after every class, and allowed them to follow the subject with much less problems. The necessity of having to solve problems on their own made the students to acquire the skills necessary to solve a new problem.
For the works that the students had to prepare and present in the classroom, the tutoring session was used. They had to attend a tutorship at least three times during the course, in order to guide and help them to focus the work, and also to help them with the presentations.
These new methodologies led to an improvement of the participation of the students in the subject, an important increase of the percentage of students that succeeded, and also of the qualifications that they obtained.
In a second step, trying to make things easier for the students a “blog” was created, and the solutions of the numerical problems, as well as a glossary, and several activities were done.

Keywords:

problem solving, tutorship, geologic engineering.