Abstract:

Today's ‘Gen Z’ university students behave, think, and learn differently from students of past generations. In fact, their compulsive use of mobile phones and screens has caused a real change in their brain structure (Hutton et al., 2020). This situation has provoked that the different techniques and methodologies currently used by professors (usually based on a more traditional or classical methodology: e.g., master lectures, repetition of concepts and memorization - Winquist & Carlson, 2014) are not fully effective, generating a gap between the learning method used and the students.

To try to solve this problem, which in recent years has been (unsuccessfully) sought to be corrected (only and simply) through the use of ICTs, it is intended to propose a learning system based on gamification techniques that stimulates the active and autonomous learning process of the students (cf., Fernández et al., 2020) by following some of the fundamental principles on which the Montessori method is based (Kramer, 1976; Lillard, 1996; Montessori, 1912). Specifically, with this system we aim to provide the possibility of verifying the knowledge acquired by the student after each session (by both the professor and the student itself) through simple multiple choice questions answered in a totally voluntary way on their smartphones (Fernández et al., 2020). With this, it would be possible to obtain, apart from an accurate tool of the degree of knowledge acquired on each part of the subject, an intrinsic motivation and implication of the student (Ali et al., 2010) both in the short term (to demonstrate their learning versus the rest of its classmates) as well as in the long term (since the student could obtain optionally extra points according to its performance, and similarly, some future potential help to better prepare its final exam by repeating the questions as many times as he/she would like to, individually and without any external supervision).

The results obtained are quite inspiring, showing that the most motivated students (average ‘top 3’ and ‘top 10’ of the class in these tests) obtain 25% more of average mark in their final exam than their classmates (Ali et al., 2010), and that curiously, they manage to maintain this motivation in subsequent courses (forming part of the’ top 3’ and ‘top 10’ the following years, in 66% and 40% of the times respectively). Likewise, the application of this methodology makes possible the reduction of the dispersion between the grades of the best and worst students (therefore increasing the general motivation and engagement of the group), going from an average of 45% to only 30%.

Keywords:

Autonomous learning process, Montessori methodology, intrinsic motivation, university teaching.