Abstract:

One of the current concerns of university teachers is to obtain and maintain the interest and motivation of students in their classes. This concern increases in those subjects that are located in the first years of the degrees. This is the case of the subject Linear Algebra, taught in the first academic year of the different Engineering Degrees at the Polytechnic School of Engineering of Gijón (EPI) of the University of Oviedo. For this reason, this group of teachers has thought of incorporating technological tools into the scope of their teaching methodology in order to keep the students' attention active and fun, but with significant learning. The tool chosen has been Kahoot!, already widely documented in various scientific publications, showing its ability to establish active working dynamics in the classroom. The objectives of the project are: to maintain the attendance of the students to the classes during the whole semester trying to improve the situation of previous courses, to promote that the students are responsible for their learning, making the classes more participative, to achieve that students have a positive attitude towards the subject and to improve the academic results of previous courses.

The basic instruments needed to carry out the project are: on the part of the students, to answer the proposed questions, the smartphones, devices that are already totally widespread among the university community, and; for the preparation and elaboration of the questions, computer means to which any university professor has access (classroom computer, projector, wifi, specialized software...). Regardless of the percentage of success in each session in which the activity was carried out, it should be noted that class attendance coincides with participation in the activity (100%), since all students who attended the classes where the activity was implemented wanted
to participate in it. Although, in principle, successes were not one of the main objectives, we can say that the success rate of students was quite high. Moreover, given that during the last 3 courses the percentage of those who took the end-of-semester exam varied between 50% and 63%, while in the current academic year 70% of the students enrolled took the exam; this data makes us value positively the experience of using this tool in the classroom, since we think that we maintained the interest in the subject. The dropout rate was also reduced, since the number of students attending lectures was maintained throughout most of the year, reaching its highest point in the middle of the semester, while during other academic years the number of students attending was decreasing. Taking into consideration the level of incidence of the project in the teaching of the target subject, we can affirm that it is feasible to put the project into practice in other subjects (Calculus, Mathematics Extension, Numerical Calculus, etc.), both in EPI and in other centres where the Mathematics Department of the University of Oviedo teaches, promoting both the use of technological tools at the service of the methodological proposal and the collaboration between the teaching staff, both in our own institution and with others.

Keywords:

Learning, Play, Kahoot!.