Didactic methodologies used in industrial design and mechanical engineering for the implementation of the marked competencies and their professional insertion

Abstract

Since the academic year 2010–11 the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) and the Salesianos Atocha College (CSA), have been steadil working on teaching their subjects through the Project-Oriented Learning (POL) methodology. Later they also implemented more didactics methodologies in order to achieve a higher development in the competences of students. These schools incorporated Service-Learning (SL), and several other tools such as Dynamic Technical Documentation (DTD), Google Sites and Moodle. Other teaching methodologies have been added since the academic year 2014–15 in order to further improve the training of students, which pay special attention to training units which are particularly difficult to understand. To this end, didactic methodologies such as Kounaikenshuu, Flipped Classroom, and tools such as Portfolio, Plickers and Kahoot! all aimed at improving the quality of the Bachelor Final Thesis. The implementation of these new didactic methodologies not only improved students’ academic training (32% improvement in UPM, 14% in theoretical training and 33% in practical training in CSA) but also achieved the competencies marked for the double Degree in Design and Mechanical Engineering at UPM and Industrial Mechatronics in the CSA These results were also confirmed by the satisfaction surveys carried out by the collaborating partners of the projects which showed improvements of between 19% and 43% in theoretical training and between 53% and 68% in practical training at UPM, whereas in CSA, the improvement in theoretical training was 22% and 85% in practical training according to the criterion of the partner-collaborators. Professors and teachers from both institutions said that the implementation of these methodologies caused them to be overworked due to the excessive number of students but on the other hand, they also improved their teaching competencies.