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This mixed-methods study aims to explore the assessment strategies and tools teachers use to assess student learning in Virtual exchange (VE) in foreign/second language for specific purposes (FLSP) courses at tertiary level. The quantitative data were collected by means of a purpose-designed questionnaire that focused on assessment tools teachers used in order to give feedback to students involved in a VE project. The questionnaire data was supplemented with oral interviews with language teachers from diverse cultural backgrounds and aimed at eliciting more in-depth information about the planning of the assessment process, the form of assessment (e.g. summative or formative) and feedback provision. The results indicate that the teachers tend to perceive assessment as a formative process and apply assessment tools that focus on both content and language components, and encourage reflective practice and collaboration.

Due to its high failure rate, Introductory Programming has become a main concern. One of the main issues is the incapability of slow-paced students to cope up with given programming materials. This paper proposes a learning technique which utilizes pair programming to help slow-paced students on Introductory Programming; each slow-paced student is paired with a fast-paced student and the latter is encouraged to teach the former as a part of grading system. An evaluation regarding that technique has been conducted on three undergraduate classes from an Indonesian university for the second semester of 2018. According to the evaluation, the use of pair programming may help both slow-paced and fast-paced students. Nevertheless, it may not significantly affect individual academic performance.

In the present article we analyse the impact of problem-based learning (PBL) on learning and perceptions in first-year students undertaking Engineering in Computer Sciences. The module designed took a number of advanced theories of PBL and its application within the Engineering profession. Mixed methods were used to enable data from qualitative and quantitative instruments to be obtained. A quasi-experimental design was specified, employing non-probabilistic sampling, with a control (N = 40) and experimental group (N = 39). In comparing PBL with traditional methods, the results reveal statistically significant differences in aspects such as academic performance. Teamwork, oral communication, written communication and students’ perceptions of the learning experience were also all favoured. Nonetheless, lack of adequate team dynamics in previous learning experiences and reluctance to change traditional teaching approaches, could compromise the viability of that proposed.

In a course of the degree of computer science, the programming project has changed from individual to teamed work, tentatively in couples (pair programming). Students have full freedom to team up with minimum intervention from teachers. The analysis of the working groups made indicates that students do not tend to associate with students with a similar academic performance, perhaps because general cognitive parameters do not drive the choice of academic partners. Pair programming seems to give great results, so the efforts of future research in this field should focus precisely on how these pairs are formed, underpinning the mechanisms of human social interactions.

Este texto describe una metodología de enseñanza en proyectos arquitectónicos basada en enunciados próximos al alumno a los que se añaden la práctica de la cooperación en el aula, los ejercicios de experimentación espacial y la producción de una arquitectura construida.Los objetivos son:• Enriquecer el ejercicio creativo con factores como la empatía, la consciencia espacial y el compromiso. • Realizar un ejercicio de fortalecimiento social.•Practicar el trabajo en equipos complejos lo que implica definir estructuras, asumir liderazgos y aprovechar capacidades. • Enfrentar el proyecto arquitectónico a temas como el presupuesto, los plazos de ejecución, el proceso de construcción, la funcionalidad y el carácter plástico más allá del dibujo.Esta experiencia está siendo validada a través del impacto social, las buenas calificaciones que obtienen los estudiantes y la excelente valoración de la actividad docente en el apartado que evalúa la capacidad del método para proporcionar conocimientos y habilidades. This text describes a methodology of teaching in architectural projects based on exercises close to the student to which are added the practice of cooperation in the classroom, spatial experimentation and the production of a built architecture.The goals are:• Enrich the creative exercise with factors such as empathy, spatial awareness and commitment.• Carry out a social strengthening exercise.• Practice working in complex teams, which involves defining structures, assuming leadership and taking advantage of skills.• Facing the architectural project to topics such as budget, deadlines, functionality and plastic character beyond drawing.The experience is being validated through the social impact, the good qualifications obtained by the students and the excellent evaluation of the teaching activity in the section that appraises the ability of the method to make the student acquire knowledge and skills.

El proyecto Tácticas Proyectuales Colaborativas es una experiencia docente que propone la actualización del trabajo en equipo en la asignatura de proyectos arquitectónicos. Con este fin, se superponen al curso una serie de tácticas de co-diseño y co-aprendizaje basadas en principios de Design thinking, que permiten simular las condiciones de un estudio de arquitectura, a escala de toda la clase, trabajando en un reto común. La experiencia, desarrollada por el grupo de innovación docente de la ETSAM Dispositivos Aglutinadores de Proyecto, responde a una realidad profesional multiespecializada, colaborativa y compleja, alejada de los modelos individualistas tradicionales. Para ello se entiende la Universidad como una entidad capaz de afectar a su contexto y a su disciplina, el aula como un entorno próximo donde amplificar el conocimiento entre pares, el grupo-clase como un colectivo de investigación análogo al estudio profesional, y el conjunto alumno-profesor como un agente activo de aprendizaje. Collaborative Design Tactics is a teaching experience that revisits and updates the teamwork format within the Design Studio courses. To this end, a set of co-design and co-learning tactics, based on Design thinking principles, overlaps the natural rhythm of the course. It simulates the real conditions of an architectural office that works towards a common goal, at a scale of the whole class together. The experience, developed by the Teaching Innovation Group from ETSAM, called “Agglutinative Design Devices”, deals with a reality characterized by multi-skilled professional work, collaboration and complexity, which is far away from traditional individual models. With this intention, the group understands the University as an entity able to affect its context and its discipline, the classroom as a close environment where knowledge between peers can be amplified, the students as a research group akin to a professional office and the ensemble student-Professor as a learning active agent.

Learning is more concerned in engineering education as students need to do deep learning to understand the engineering principles for practice. Engineering is a practicing profession. Therefore, providing learning environment is required for the subjects of engineering disciplines to enable students to learn in depth. By knowing this phenomenon, field study was conducted as a group study for the civil engineering subject of building construction allowing students to learn and gain knowledge by observing construction activities in construction projects in addition to the lectures in usual classroom. At the end of the study, it is found that field study is useful for learning and students acquire knowledge and understand the application of theory at real situation. In addition, students develop skills for working as a team by organizing their works, sharing knowledge, discussing with relevant technical personnel at work site and achieving the targets within the given time frame. It is realized that teacher’s role is vital to make the study successful in the ways of organizing field study, conducting discussion classes to assist students, monitoring the progress and giving the feedback of the students’ performance during the course of field study producing excellent results while satisfying the objectives of both teacher and students.

This work presents the assessment of the development and evolution of an active methodology (Project-Based Learning –PBL-) implemented on the course “Unit Operations in Environmental Engineering”, within the bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering, with the purpose of decreasing the dropout rate in this course. After the initial design and implementation of this methodology during the first academic year (12/13), different modifications were adopted in the following ones (13-14, 14-15 & 15-16) in order to optimize the student’s and professor’s work load as well as correct some malfunctions observed in the initial design of the PBL. This active methodology seeks to make students the main architects of their own learning processes. Accordingly, they have to identify their learning needs, which is a highly motivating approach both for their curricular development and for attaining the required learning outcomes in this field of knowledge. The results obtained show that working in small teams (cooperative work) enhances each group member’s self–learning capabilities. Moreover, academic marks improve when compared to traditional learning methodologies. Nevertheless, the implementation of more active methodologies, such as project-based learning, in small groups has certain specific characteristics. In this case it has been implemented simultaneously in two different groups of 10 students each one. Such small groups are more heterogeneoussince the presence of two highly motivated students or not can vary or affect the whole group’s attitude and academic results.

The common and easy access to technological devices has led to the rapid inclusion of technology into the learning process. The development of technical skills, as well as the increasing confidence in computer attitudes, seems to be obvious. We therefore propose to go beyond and advocate the use of TEL to provide specific leadership, multi-tasking and other organizational skills, known as computational thinking, as precisely the main contributions provided by TEL. To support this hypothesis, we present two different experiences. The first, based on high-school students, to introduce young people to technology at the same time as they acquire other demanding skills. The second, with undergraduate Computer Science students, is focused on technology itself to enhance and improve computational thinking skills. A comparison is also made between two populations with different digital profiles in their user skills (general in the first case and engineering biased in the second).

In this paper we present a specific kind of projects that can be used for project-based learning in engineering subjects. The subjects must combine lectures with projects, in order to provide the technical competences together with additional skills such as teamwork learning, oral and written communication skills and application of theory to practice. The projects proposed consist on improving an elemental baseline system. The system is decomposed in modules that correspond to the topics that have been learnt during the lectures. For improving the system, the class is divided in groups and each group has to propose, implement, assess and report a better system. In order to be able to improve the system with a limited amount of time and effort the students need to make a coherent proposal and split the project in several tasks that are usually developed by one or two students. The students within a group cooperate to achieve a better system, but groups compete for the best results. We have already implemented this kind of project in a Speech Processing course and we plan to apply it in a Video Coding course.

This paper presents an outline of the evaluation of the active learning taking place in an engineering course1 in the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. The course intends to contribute to the development of the innovative attitude of Systems and Computing Engineering and Industrial Engineering students (average age is 20), through the development of competences such as: - Engineering teamwork - Effective communication in engineering processes - Engineering systems design - Management of engineering projects Throughout the course the students work in interdisciplinary teams (5 students each). Each team has the following of the teachers (One Computing Engineering professor and one Industrial engineering professor) and one member of the entrepreneurs staff (ICT leaders). Each team should propose and develop an engineering project based on ICT innovation. This course is inspired on the CDIO proposal (Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate), with a particular emphasis in one additional first step: the Observe step. The OCDIO steps (observation, conception, design, implementation and operation) of the project are developed during two academic semesters. At the end of this process, the teams present their project in a fair that’s open for the business public and in a contest. The winners of the contest continue the next year with the implementation of the project [1]. So far, 20 groups have participated each semester and there have been 4 winning teams (20 students). We tried to assess the teamwork evolution along the process and its relation with the innovation attitude. In order to achieve this, we’ve had gathered information from the entrepreneurs, teachers and students who, through observation tools, have allowed us to define indicators related to teamwork. For the analysis we have relied on the different evaluation instances (oral presentations, papers, the fair, and the contest), the tools we have designed (surveys), and video recordings of different processes.

We present here research for deriving a collaborative learning situation which is not base don a Project or problem. The method mainly consists in working in small teams (4 or 5 students) in order to debate on a lesson which has been previously studied individually (as homework) by each student. Coupled with a classical exercises usually solved within the team, this method appears to be very efficient, motivating for the students and well adapted to any subject, including those often considered as difficult to be studied in active PBL, such as mathematics.

MERIT is a research-oriented Joint European Master on Information and Communication Technologies funded by the Erasmus Mundus program of the European Community. Its well funded scholarship scheme offers an outstanding opportunity for students, professors and researchers from non-European countries to participate in education programs (e.g Remote Sensing) in Europe.

In a first-of-its-kind international collaboration, technical writing classes in Spain and the US matched engineering students with international technical writing students to coauthor procedural instructions. These were then tested for usability by students in Finland and the US, and subsequently translated and localized by students in Belgium, France, and Italy. The coauthors faced challenges in gaining expertise, communicating clearly in a lingua franca, handling differing cultures, testing for usability, and managing differing semester schedules and time zones. Insights from these experiences yield recommendations for instructors who wish to replicate such collaborations.

Objeto: En este trabajo se presenta una herramienta de evaluación del desempeño de un equipo de trabajo que permite tutorizar experiencias de aprendizaje de trabajo en equipo y retroalimentar a los estudiantes en base a unos criterios de mejora definidos. Diseño/metodología: La herramienta se ha diseñado a partir de un modelo creado a partir de una revisión bibliográfica que representa el proceso de trabajo en equipo. A partir de este modelo se ha diseñado un cuestionario que permite medir el funcionamiento de los equipos y se ha utilizado con 53 equipos de trabajo en el Grado en Ingeniería de Organización Industrial de Tecnun-Universidad de Navarra. Aportaciones y resultados: El análisis de los resultados de estos equipos ha permitido obtener información acerca de la idoneidad de la herramienta para valorar el funcionamiento de equipos de trabajo en el ámbito docente. Implicaciones prácticas: El uso de la herramienta a lo largo de un ciclo docente conduce a la progresiva adquisición de la competencia por parte de los alumnos. Implicaciones sociales: El trabajo en equipo es una competencia profesional que demandan las organizaciones y las universidades deberían planificar su desarrollo y evaluación. Valor añadido: El desarrollo de la competencia de trabajo en equipo requiere de diferentes habilidades sociales y de gestión personal que difícilmente se adquieren tan sólo a través de la realización de trabajos en equipo sin disponer de una retroalimentación justificada acerca de cómo el grupo de alumnos trabaja en equipo. Esta herramienta permite tutorizar experiencias de aprendizaje de trabajo en equipo y retroalimentar a los estudiantes en base a unos criterios de mejora definidos. Purpose: In this article, we present a tool for assessing the performance of teamwork activities. The results obtained from this tool can be used to guide teamwork learning and mentor students by giving them feedback on their work. Design/methodology/approach: The tool was based on a model of teamwork effectiveness from the literature. In this sense, analyzing a series of activities performed of by the same team can allow us to know whether the students involved in these activities are acquiring the ability to effectively engage in teamwork. Findings: The tool was used with 53 teams in a Bachelor’s Degree Programme inIndustrial Engineering. In this case, the results were used to analyze whether theproposed tool is suitable for assessing teamwork effectiveness in the university context. Practical implications: This tool will serve to provide feedback to students about the acquisition of their teamwork competency throughout the course of a Bachelor’s Degree. Social implications: Teamwork is a professional ability required by a great number of organizations, and universities should incorporate the development and assessment o fteamwork skills into their degree programmes. Originality/value: Developing this competence requires different social and personalskills, which are very difficult for students to acquire only by engaging in teamwork-building activities.

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of using rounds of questions posed by work groups of an Engineering Project course after their project presentations. Before, students were offered the possibility of putting questions to speakers before the lecturer asked his/her own questions. Unfortunately, student participation was often very low and questions sometimes lacked depth, or were irrelevant or poorly stated. However, question time is a good moment to raise doubts, which can help presenters think about their project. That is, student and lecturer participation can open the minds of presenters to new ideas about their own work. Students’ questions may even expand on the lecturer's questions and also create a spirit of positive criticism among students as part of student training. To enhance student participation, a controlled process is followed. Work groups think up and write questions which are later included in their project portfolio. Finally, student questionnaires are used to assess the process. Details of questionnaires and results, as well as an example of a project, are given elsewhere in the paper

In recent years, a number of teaching strategies have been applied in higher education to improve students’ academic results and motivation, with a focus on active methodologies. These techniques highlight the student learning process at the forefront of the classroom. Embedded Methodologies, defined as a mixture of learning strategies which are combined in a single educational environment, have a potential for boosting their impact. Few studies have addressed what impact may be involved by applying them in the learning process. An Embedded Methodology in Engineering higher education with Cooperative Learning, Just-In-Time Teaching and active informal methodologies is proposed. The authors present a ten-year longitudinal study in which academic results and student satisfaction reported by a standardized survey among 294 students attending a “Telecommunications and Internet” subject at EEBE Engineering School from UPC-BarcelonaTech (Spain). The results show that Embedded Methodologies significantly improved students’ motivation and their final marks; in particular, for those students at risk of failing the subject but not with the lowest grades. The applied learning methodology was found to be the best predictor of their grades in the subject, among other factors such as their performance in the University Entrance exam. Students’ perception of the quality of teaching and their academic results were significantly better when compared with those student groups that were exposed to only one active methodology or none at all, suggesting that a mixture of motivational learning techniques boost their impact on the students’ learning process and on their motivation.