Abstract:

One of the problems with mathematics curricular units in the first year of engineering courses is the lack of motivation and commitment of students in learning the contents. In particular, in the post-covid context, there are several gaps in learning the basic concepts of mathematics taught in secondary education. To overcome these difficulties and try to motivate 1st year computer engineering students to learn mathematics, an active methodology was applied using videos. Kearney ([1]) concluded that the creation of digital videos by students is capable of developing authentic learning. Contrary to what happens with more traditional teaching tasks where materials and processes are imposed on students by the teacher, when creating a video, students collaboratively plan, produce, and evaluate their own projects. By adopting active methods, students' autonomy is privileged, since they are the center of the teaching/learning process ([2]). Bonwell ([3]) defined active learning as a method in which students are encouraged to actively participate in learning, that is, students must do more than assume the position of listeners, they must also engage in activities such as reading, discussing, writing, and solving problems. Active learning improves critical thinking, motivation, communication, collaboration, entrepreneurship, and integration into society. This work presents a pedagogical experience, applied during two consecutive academic years, 2021/2022 and 2022/2023, in the curricular unit of Mathematical Analysis of the 1st year and 1st semester of a degree in Computer Engineering, which aimed to encourage motivation and learning of students. For this, the assessment in this curricular unit consisted of 2 individual written tests (80%) and a group work (20%). The group work proposed to the students was composed of two components: a written research work with the resolution of an exercise about 1st order ordinary differential equations and a video of this resolution with a maximum duration of 5 minutes. For the elaboration of this work, the students were divided into groups of 5 elements, and each group, guided by their teacher, had to do research on the subject and on how to solve the proposed exercise. In the making of the videos, students were encouraged to explore their creativity combined with mathematical rigor. The teachers suggested the use of low-cost videos, that is, low-cost production videos that can be created by any person ([4]). The autonomous learning of new digital tools, such as tools for video production and editing, contributed to this. The videos had a didactic and pedagogical character, and the students were informed that the best videos would be made available to their colleagues through the Moodle platform. In this work, in the two academic years, 666 students guided by 7 professors participated and 118 videos were made. At the end of each semester, an anonymous survey was carried out to assess the students' opinions regarding this methodology. In general, the students enjoyed this experience and felt motivated to learn, highlighting that learning something new “by themselves”, teamwork, and the development of new skills in terms of editing and video production, were positive aspects of this initiative. This opinion of the students is in line with the final results in the evaluation of the curricular unit, noting in these academic years an increase in the approval rate in relation to previous years.

Keywords:

Active learning, mathematics, motivation, videos.